When an EF-3 tornado struck Amory in March 2023, it ravaged homes, businesses, and took a toll on the local high school with the destruction of the softball, baseball, and football fields.
As student-athletes at Amory High School were displaced – having to play “home” games at neighboring schools like Tupelo High School – officials were working hard to rebuild the facilities as quickly as possible and return a true home-field advantage to a small town where high school sports are king.
“Athletics are a major staple in our community,” Amory Mayor Corey Glenn explained. “The community supports these teams heavily. It doesn’t matter if it’s a home game or an away game. We have a saying around here: ‘If you’re the last one to leave town, turn the lights off.’”
Unfortunately for Mayor Glenn and the 6,500 residents of Amory, the lights were nonexistent on Amory High School’s football field after the tornado came through on that ill-fated night of March 24, 2023. Pictures the morning after the storm showed metal bleachers crumpled, the press box leveled, and light poles no longer standing tall.
As the town started on the road to recovery, school officials turned their attention to building the football stadium back better than before.
In January, the Amory School Board approved Hellas Construction’s bid for the stadium’s construction. Board members and Amory High School administrators and coaches traveled to some of the best high school facilities in the state and took notes of different features they liked and other features they could do without. These trips turned into a $6.1 million plan to provide Panther football players with a stadium intended to last for decades to come.
“What the school board and a lot of the staff did was went out and toured a lot of the local facilities, some of the top-notch facilities in the state, and tried to incorporate a lot of those features into our stadium,” Glenn continued.
After a spring and summer full of construction, the plan came to fruition with Amory High School unveiling the completed stadium just in time for the 2024 season. The new bleachers seat 4,400 while the new field includes a turf playing surface with the script Amory logo sitting in the middle at the 50-yard line. Other additions include a jumbotron scoreboard and a concession stand that displays menus on TV monitors.
“What an amazing venue we’ve been able to create,” Glenn said, adding that Friday’s home opener against Pontotoc High School is expected to be standing-room only. “Getting the kids and the band and the cheerleaders back and having that home-field advantage with them being able to be in front of their families and the crowd, there’s going to be a lot of excitement.”
Even though the Amory High School football team did not have a true home stadium this time last year, Coach Brooks Dampeer’s squad overcame the odds and made a short run in the class 4A playoffs before falling in the second round to West Lauderdale. This year, the team will look to win its first state championship since 1998 and in a brand-new stadium.
