Mostly cloudy skies early then periods of showers late. Low 64F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%..

Mostly cloudy skies early then periods of showers late. Low 64F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.

Chris St. Clair with RW Electric installs the LED lighting system on the four poles at Woodrow Wilson High School football field. LEDs will last longer and use less electricity and will not lose their brightness like standard bulbs do over the years. Two poles are completed, and the remaining two should be lit up by the next home night game. Rick Barbero/The Register-Herald

Chris St. Clair with RW Electric installs the LED lighting system on the four poles at Woodrow Wilson High School football field. LEDs will last longer and use less electricity and will not lose their brightness like standard bulbs do over the years. Two poles are completed, and the remaining two should be lit up by the next home night game. Rick Barbero/The Register-Herald

Chris St. Clair with RW Electric installs the LED lighting system on the four poles at Woodrow Wilson High School football field. LEDs will last longer and use less electricity and will not lose their brightness like standard bulbs do over the years. Two poles are completed, and the remaining two should be lit up by the next home night game. Rick Barbero/The Register-Herald

Chris St. Clair with RW Electric installs the LED lighting system on the four poles at Woodrow Wilson High School football field. LEDs will last longer and use less electricity and will not lose their brightness like standard bulbs do over the years. Two poles are completed, and the remaining two should be lit up by the next home night game. Rick Barbero/The Register-Herald

Woodrow Wilson is planning to bring a fresh vibe to the Friday Night Lights experience.

Part of the ongoing renovations to Van Meter Stadium is the installation of new stadium lights. Work to that end is not quite complete because of some delays and is the reason the decision was made last week to push the Flying Eagles' home opener against Parkersburg South to Saturday with an afternoon kickoff of 1 p.m.

"We worked with Parkersburg South to come up with that time because we had put them out a little bit with some of the things that were out of their control," first-year Woodrow Wilson Principal Ryan Stafford said. "We wanted to make sure that we decided on a time that worked well for them. Parkersburg South said that 1 o'clock would work well for them, and that works well for us."

Stafford said he anticipates the lights being ready in time for Woodrow's next home game, scheduled for Friday, Sept. 16, against Bluefield. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m.

When the lights are ready, fans should be ready for a more vibrant experience.

The new LED lights will bring a brighter and more exciting effect to Friday nights. First and foremost, however, replacement was borne of necessity.

"Those old-school stadium lights, when we turned ours on it would take them a while to kind of fire up," Stafford said. "These turn on in an instant. I mean, they're instantly on, instantly off."

Once the switch is flipped, fans will start to witness a brand new experience with many possibilities.

"Woodrow took on paying for an added feature as part of the new light system. We purchased an add-on that gives a light show effect," Stafford said. "You can do a steeplechase effect or a checkerboard effect, and it shines a spotlight on certain parts of the field at certain times. It's stuff that we can do pregame. Our band can use it as part of their presentation during pregame or at halftime. There's some really cool things that we can do with it."

It's much like the lights that were installed at West Virginia State's complex last season, when the Yellow Jackets played the first night game in school history.

Work on the project began in the summer, but a number of delays made this weekend's rescheduling necessary.

"We had a timetable for how long these lights were supposed to take (to install), and they've been working on them for quite some time," Stafford said. "The kind of work that they do, any time we get any kind of adverse weather or anything, that's a lost day. So there's just been a combination of things that have happened — things with their supplies, things with the weather — the timetable just got really, really tight.

"When you're having an event like a home football game, there comes a point in time where, if you're not sure, you need to go ahead and move it. The timetable's going to be tight enough. We didn't feel comfortable doing that to our fans and we didn't feel comfortable doing that to Parkersburg South. We wanted to put everybody in position where we had plenty of notice."

The home side bleachers will be inaccessible the entire season due to structural issues found during a routine check last month.

"With our bleachers and the steps we've had to go through with that, that didn't make the process any easier," Stafford said. "But the crews have been working around the clock, and the Board of Education and our central office have taken steps to try to streamline putting those lights up as well. Anything that we have been able to use as a resource in regard to making it happen faster, our central office has taken those steps."

Stafford is excited to put the finished product on display.

"It's going to be a first-class system," Stafford said. "It's going to be something that is very rare around the state of West Virginia. It's going to make our game day atmosphere even cooler."

Email: gfauber@register-herald.com; follow on Twitter @gfauber5

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.

Sign up now to get our FREE breaking news coverage delivered right to your inbox.

First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.