The end is near for the old football and track surfaces at Hughes Stadium.

With the awarding of the final bid, the Lion Pride Restoration Project will start April 28 with both the Sprinturf company and Beynon Sports Surfaces resurfacing the grounds.

The bid for the track surface was awarded to Beynon for $371,100 which was the next to lowest bid. Sallie Beard, athletic director, said because BSS has a 10-year warranty, the committee thought it was a better deal for Missouri Southern.

“It (the warranty) more than made up for the difference between them and the next lowest bidder,” Beard said.

The 10-year warranty includes repair or replacement of high stress areas one time at Southern’s discretion. The repairs could be made after the 10-year warranty has ended. Beynon will also re-stripe the lanes and event markings at least once as part of the warranty.

“I hope people will realize that this is the beginning of the end,” said Keith Adams, co-chairman of the Lion Pride Restoration Project. “And we will continue so we don’t have to push the panic button next time.”

Mary Garrett, senior psychology major, said she was expecting a state of the art facility during her time at Southern. Garrett said when she was recruited by Southern four years ago she was told the College would receive a new track surface. B.J. Blocker, sophomore secondary education major, said he was also told by the College that a new track surface would be installed when he was recruited.

“You always have that dream when you go to college that you’ll see a great facility and it will be esthetically pleasing, also, and now we’re going to have that,” Garrett said. “It’s going to give us that bigger college and university feel.”

Chris Turner, junior pole vaulter, said the track and field team had to make do with the existing surfaces in Hughes Stadium.

Turner said the team placed a makeshift wood runway for the pole vaulters on the “condemned football field.”

The track surface will be an eight lane, 13 mm, full-pour surface which meets NCAA regulations. It will be polyurethane throughout the structure. Beard said the College looked at a 10 mm surface and surface spray, but neither one of them would stand the test of time.

“It will be a more resilient surface, it will be more conducive to training,” she said.

“It strikes a happy medium between speed and safety for the student athletes.”

The track surface at Leggett & Platt is a Beynon product that was placed under a different company name.The company has similar surfaces at James Madison University, University of Tulsa and the University of North Carolina.

The Board of Regents in its meeting discussed placing a camera on top of the scoreboard for people to go to Southern’s Web site and see how the project is coming along. The completion date for the project is estimated at 60-90 days after construction begins. With the start date scheduled for April 28, the project is expected to be finished by September for the start of the football season.

“The sooner we start this the better,” said College President Julio León.

Beard said after the project is completed, everything in the stadium will be covered in either turf or in a new track surface. Tom Rutledge, head men’s track and field coach, said the new surface could be used for MIAA meets or for meets outside the MIAA if the need arises.