National Guard helps build Jeff Lucas stadium

Corbett football team to play first game there Sept. 4

By Rob Cullivan

The Gresham Outlook, Jul 28, 2010, Updated Jul 28, 2010 (1 Reader comment)

Jim Clark / The Outlook

Members of Oregon Air Guard’s 142nd Fighter Wing’s Civil Engineers assemble the Jeff Lucas Memorial Stadium on Tuesday.

Chief Master Staff Sgt. Jeff Roy of the Oregon Air National Guard’s 142nd Civil Engineers Squadron has worked on military construction projects in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

He adds that some of his guard members have also worked on construction projects in Bangladesh, Iraq and Afghanistan.

This week and next week, however, 10 to 20 members of his squadron a day are helping to build the 400-seat Jeff Lucas Memorial Veterans Stadium on the grounds of the Corbett schools.

“We’ve been playing in an away game for a long time,” he says. “It’s nice to play a home game.”

Indeed, Corbett High School’s football team will play its first home game at the new stadium Saturday, Sept. 4, thanks in part to the guard, whose masons, carpenters, steel workers, electricians and others are pouring concrete, installing stands and weaving electrical wires.

The project is part of the National Guard’s Innovative Readiness Training Program, which allows guard members to provide their labor, expertise and equipment to construct such facilities as the stadium in communities.

Senior Airman Chris Black just returned from a six-month tour of Iraq, where he worked on such projects as a clinic and a runway. The electrician notes such projects as the stadium helps him expand his set of skills and improves his teamwork.

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