UPPER LAKE, Calif. – A campaign by the Upper Lake High School Boosters Club is containing to gain momentum – and funds – in its goal of installing lights for outdoor sports at the school.

“The Lights of Love” program is chaired by Ron Raetz. He and wife Patricia are both former teachers and longtime supporters of Upper Lake High School.

The program had raised $115,000 as of the start of February, bringing in another $15,000 during its seventh annual fundraiser on Feb. 14, Ron Raetz said.

The effort also has received from Robinson Rancheria Resort and Casino a donation of 47 lights which are surplus from a parking lot light project at Robinson five years ago, Raetz said.

Raetz said the project is moving forward at the same time as there are changes for the Upper Lake High School football team, which is to begin competing in eight-man – rather than 11-man – football for the first time.

It was a decision that was thrust upon the school by enrollment numbers, which have declined in the most recent years. Raetz said high school enrollment has dropped to the 200 range.

Last season the Cougars could field only 12 players for an 11-man team.

“We just got massacred,” Raetz said. “We only scored two touchdowns all year. You can’t get players anymore because everybody’s leaving California.”

But eight-man football has gained a modicum of popularity as the game form played by the professional Arena Football League.

The Upper Lake High School District, which stretches from Blue Lakes to Lucerne, has a good friend in Joanne Breton, owner-proprietor of Judy’s Junction restaurant and a member of the Upper Lake Union Elementary School Board.

Her staff at the restaurant contributed the labor for the “Lights of Love” Valentine’s Day fundraising dinner.

“Upper Lake is a well-rounded community, but there are not enough activities for kids here,” Breton said regarding her involvement. “The high school field is the only one (in Lake County) that doesn’t have lights. We should be in support of the kids with Friday night lights for Friday night games.”

Even with contributions from the outside community, getting those lights mounted and working won’t be easy.

“It’s not like St. Helena,” said Raetz. “We don’t get any major donations for raffles. In the last two years we had some nice cash gifts (for the fundraising program) from a student who graduated here but wants to remain anonymous. His dad, who passed away a long time ago, had a lot to do with our new gym.

“Yes, we have all those lights,” he added. “But when you do something for public schools in California you have to overplan it, and overbuild it and that costs the taxpayers money.”

Some preliminary planning was made cost-effectively by hiring the same contractors who installed solar panels at the school to use their horizontal drilling technique to install a conduit from the scoreboard to the power panel. The process cost $5,700.

Another $4,800 was spent, Raetz said, to have Reese Engineering drill core samples to learn the requirements for footings that will be needed to have the 80-foot steel light poles erected.

The light poles, said Raetz, will cost an overall $35,000.

A question that needs an answer is where the lights will be positioned and will their footings need to be 24 or 28 feet deep.

More questions await regarding the massive power system needed to light an athletic field.

Raetz said that Tom Powers of Lake County Electric has the fixtures needed and Brian Paul from Paul Engineering is bringing all the electric planning together.

“ … But we still have to have an architect and a structural engineer,” he said.

“The planning has been kind of hush-hush because before we can do anything somebody from the state has to take a look at it,” he added.

Looking for financial aid from the state for the project, Raetz said, would be an exercise of futility.

“The school’s gotta come up with something somewhere,” he added. “The state won’t do a damn thing for us.”

For more information about the effort or how to help, call Ron Raetz at 707-275-2824.

Email John Lindblom at [email protected] .