Armorel to host 1A state tourneys

Armorel has been granted the state tournaments for both 1A baseball and 1A softball to be held from May 13-16 between the Armorel school fields and Blytheville Youth Sportsplex.

Blytheville Baseball Softball Boosters board member, Kenny Burge, presented bids to the Arkansas Activities Association last week and was in Little Rock Thursday evening to hear the announcement.

"I'm on 'Cloud Nine,'" said Burge. "If we can pull this off, there's no telling how far we can go."

Blytheville Mayor James Sanders said it allows Blytheville to showcase "our world class facility and it's another way of putting Blytheville on the map."

Burge said that AAA will receive 100 percent of the gate free room and board for umpires and AAA workers. Given the potential upside, he doesn't feel that this well be a problem considering there will be up to 32 teams coming into town that weekend.

"From the information I've gotten, teams spend about $5,000 for a weekend like this. Between hotel rooms, eating and shopping. That doesn't include the families coming in from out of town as well. We're looking at about $150,000 being spent in the Blytheville area on that weekend. As for BBSB, we'll make some money on the concession stand but that's it. The people at Armorel have told me that they will have plenty of volunteers to help that weekend. There was nothing in this for me money wise. I wanted to do this for the whole Blytheville area."

Burge presented the idea to the Armorel school board at its December meeting.

"Kenny's worked so hard on this and was so enthusiastic about it," said Armorel school board president Susan Hughes. "I'm just so excited right now. This is going to be great not just for Armorel but the whole Blytheville area. I'm sure everyone will enjoy our community and we hope to have many more of these tournaments."

Armorel head baseball coach, Charlie Brown, echoed the same sentiments of Burge and Hughes.

"This is great news. We're looking forward to this. Now all we have to do is play our way into it and we'll really be looking forward to it," said Brown. "This is a great day for the community and we really thank all of the people at the Sportsplex, Kenny and Sam Macre, for all of the hard work they've done. They really put on a good presentation."

Armorel was competing against White Hall, Viola and Rogers Public Schools for the baseball tournament and White Hall for the softball state tournament.

afitzpatrick@blythevillecourier.com