By RYAN SCOTT OTTNEY

PDT Staff Writer

LUCASVILLE —Valley High School brought home seven Southern Ohio Conference (SOC) titles last school year, and the Lucasville community and the Valley Boosters were there cheering them along every step of the way.

“The Boosters help support the athletic teams by supplementing what the athletic department through the school cannot do,” Valley Boosters President Lori Rolfe said. “Sometimes it might be helping to buy uniforms. This year when track went to state, the Boosters helped pay for the kids’ meals and we did that for basketball. In football, for the playoffs this year came the colder weather. So the Boosters bought the football players all the coldwear suits.”

Rolfe, whose husband is the assistant high school football coach and boys head basketball coach Scott Rolfe, has been a member of the Boosters for 15 years and was elected President in May.

She succeeded Rusty Yates, who now presides as Boosters Vice President. Yates’ son, Blake, was the SOC Co-Offensive Football Player of the Year, All-Time Valley High School Basketball Scoring Leader, and went undefeated in Valley High School SOC II tennis. Blake Yates graduated from Valley in May.

The Valley Boosters raise money to assist the sports programs with a variety of fundraisers, such as their concession stand sales and the annual Pot of Gold dinner. Two-hundred tickets are sold for the Pot of Gold dinner, at $100 each, each fall. During the evening there is also entertainment and prizes drawn in a raffle. The last ticket drawn in the raffle receives $5,000, Rolfe said.

“I don’t think they’ve ever not sold all of the tickets,” she said.

The next Pot of Gold dinner will be in October, and there will be a few holiday dinner fundraiser also this coming school year.

“On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, from 11 to 2, we have a Thanksgiving dinner for $8 and you can come in and get turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing and dessert. They do that also for Mother’s Day,” Rolfe said.

She said the community has overwhelmingly supported the Valley sports programs and fundraisers. As those teams did better last year, more people came out to the games to cheer them on and that typically means increased concession sales for the Boosters. That’s good news for the coaches also, who submitted their funding requests to the Boosters during a meeting last week.

“It can be anything, like with football you have helmet conditioning and decals, and socks for the team. Sometimes it might be for coaches shirts or different things — footballs, basketballs, golf balls,” Rolfe said.

Above all else, Rolfe remembers this is all for the kids at Valley High School because of what they mean to the community.

“The leadership that these boys have shown. Especially the boys that I have seen, they have taken on the role of being a leader and that hero-type to all those little kids. Whenever they come out of the locker room, all those kids want to shake their hand. They look up to them,” she said.

Ryan Scott Ottney can be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 235, or rottney@heartlandpublications.com.