NorthWood Makes Statement With Free Student Admission
NAPPANEE – A couple high schools around the state made the leap of faith. NorthWood is joining the jump.
Earlier this month, Pendleton Heights and Franklin Community High Schools announced it would offer free admission to all students for home games for the 2019-20 school year. Wednesday morning, NorthWood athletic director Norm Sellers announced the Panthers will do the same.
“NorthWood Athletics is proud to announce that all K-12 WaNee Students will be granted FREE GENERAL ADMISSION to all regular season home athletic events beginning with the 2019-20 school year,” began Sellers in a statement. “The only prerequisite is that K-8 students must be accompanied by a ticket buying adult in order to gain free admission. This is only for NorthWood High School athletics and WaNee students! Free admission cannot be included for any IHSAA tournament games that NorthWood would host. All games which we are on the road, students would have to purchase a ticket to attend. Students from our opponents will need to purchase a ticket.
“Our plan is to provide our elementary students with a student ticket that will be distributed to kids that want one. That exact plan will be announced soon. Middle/high school students will use their student ID’s to gain admission to home athletic events! This is a requirement! We realize that early on during the school year some students might not have their ID’s and we will be a little flexible until we have been notified that students have been given their ID’s.
“We are excited to be able to offer this to our families! We want our students as well as our families of this great community to attend as many home events as they can. We truly feel that this change will provide the opportunity for all students/families to experience high school athletics. We realized over the last couple of years that we have had students that wanted to attend some of our home events but chose not to because of the cost of purchasing tickets.
“Families have many choices on what to do with their hard earned money and it can become expensive for a family to attend high school athletics on a regular basis. We still feel that attending high school athletics is still the greatest value for family entertainment as well as building community pride. Maintaining our NorthWood culture is something that is extremely important to all of us. We hope that families that have had to decide not to attend home events at NorthWood due to financial reasons will now reconsider and attend when possible! WE WANT YOU HERE!!!!”
Tickets for high school athletic events – boys and girls soccer, volleyball, boys and girls basketball, wrestling, boys and girls swimming, baseball, softball and boys and girls track – all carried a $5 admission for the 2018-19 season and a $6 ticket for football. Tournament prices are typically higher. Adults and non-students will still adhere to current ticket prices at NorthWood, but the school is again offering all-sports passes for $80 for adults, $50 for seniors (62+). Admission does not include concessions. The application for those passes can be found on gonwpanthers.com.