Valley National Bank Provides a Winning Scoreboard

Scoreboard at Lamar Community Building

When the aging scoreboard at the Lamar Community Building developed performance issues, failing to provide the accurate score during ballgames, Valley National Bank in Lamar stepped up with a $12,000 donation for a new one. The replacement unit was installed at the end of the local basketball season.

Head Lamar boys and girls basketball coaches, Austin Wertz and Erik Melgoza and members of the teams, showed their appreciation with a photo of the teams which was presented to the bank. Melgoza said last week during the presentation, “We don’t thank our community enough for the support they show to our teams and this is our way of showing our appreciation.”  Regarding the scoreboard donation, he added, “The community building is one of the nicest facilities we play in but unfortunately replacement parts for the old scoreboard weren’t available.  There were games where the lights would flicker, or just wouldn’t come on, which created a problem.”

Denise Carder, Valley National Bank marketing and operations director, said, “The donation came from a discretionary fund we use each year for these kinds of instances. The bank has provided funding for the sports complex and ballfields, and most recently for the new dorm being built at Lamar Community College.  We’re a part of the community and we want to be able to contribute to it.”

Melgoza and Wertz said the teams were just beginning their annual fundraisers for the summer games program. “It costs about $5,500 for each team through the summer and we have several fundraisers selected such as a May 22nd car wash at the Pit Stop and we help out selling tickets for a beef drawing for Sutphin as they’re donating half a bull.  We also run target balloons at the fairgrounds for the mounted shooting team.”  Melgoza explained that the summer games involve a lot of travel as none of the teams on their lineup come to Lamar.  “We take on teams from Arizona and New Mexico and along the Front Range, teams that are never in our regular seasonal lineup. We want to play some harder teams as that provides our players with a challenge they don’t meet in regular play.

Valley National Bank CEO, Mark Schifferdecker was on hand for the presentation, as well as branch president Jim VanArsdale . Schifferdecker was visiting from the main office in Gerard, Kansas for the day.  He too, said the banking group contributes to these activities at their 14 branches in the region.  “It’s an opportunity for us to stay involved in our communities, our employees live and work here and it provides us a profile as being a bank that’s involved in each hometown.”

By Russ Baldwin