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I think people are mistaken if they think much of the money that Bluefield, Bluefield College and Graham were paying was being used for the upkeep of the stadium. It was going into Bluefield's general budget.

Brian Woodson just tweeted this: Negotiations have been reopened between the Tazewell County and Mercer County school boards to allow Graham to play football at Mitchell Stadium in 2018. The TCSB has made Tazewell High School's football facility available to the G-Men if a deal can't be worked out. Seems it may not be over yet.

Congrats to this young man!!! http://www.bdtonline.com/sports/taylor-caps-busy-week/article_d1b9e3aa-57f4-11e8-97d1-17805f896631.html

Of course it was going into Bluefield's "general budget." The City owned it and operated it as a General Fund activity. From the 2016-2017 audit, the City of Bluefield received line item revenues of $332,350 for "Rents, Royalties, and Concessions," $506,773 listed as "Contributions from Other Entities," and $655,490 designated as "Parks and Recreation." Impossible to tell exactly which revenues were tied to the stadium, but a quick overview suggests these as likely sources related to the operation. Compared with $1,815,320 in expenditures for "Parks and Recreation" it appears that the facility was not generating nearly enough revenue to cover its operating, capital, and/or maintenance expenses, the schools and colleges weren't contributing enough to offset those costs, and the taxpayers of Bluefield were making up the difference. I'd like to be able to dig deeper into the line items themselves, but it appears that the City Manager made a good recommendation in terms of pure business analysis. Financial information for WV cities can be viewed online at https://www.wvsao.gov/LocalGovernment/Default

Did anyone else notice that Graham & Tazewell’s schedules that were posted on here in April seem to already have had the scheduling conflicts resolved? Example - it has Tazewell opening up at home on 8/23 (Thursday) vs. Virginia High while it has Graham at home 8/24 (Friday) vs. Bluefield, and on 10/18 (Thursday) it has Graham at home vs. Richlands and Tazewell playing at home on 10/19 (Friday). Seems like the TCSB might’ve had this planned for longer than most knew of.

Word on the street is Graham coaching staff has added some Blue Tornado blood. Should definitely be an interesting season. Tazewell may surprise some people. They held Richlands till 4th quarter last year, ran out of steam. Hope you prediction is correct.

Its going to be odd not working a full season of games this year. I did hear RC has received a nice addition to the new staff.

Marshall University! Go Herd and go Mookie!

Congrats to Jason "Truck" Edwards. Per his Twitter he's going to the University of Pittsburgh to play football! I'm excited for him and to watch him continue his football career at a Power five school.