FORT THOMAS — Highlands High School will soon become one of Kentucky's first public high schools with a synthetic football field, and quite possibly the first in the Tristate to convert from natural grass.

        In Ohio, fewer than a dozen high schools out of 800 have some form of artificial turf.

        “It's a rare occurrence when any school district has a group — whether it's a community action group or a group of boosters — that get together and say, "Boom, let's just do this, especially when it comes to facilities,'” said Henry Zaborniak, associate commissioner at the Ohio High School Athletic Association. “It gets rarer when we find people who want to install artificial turf on (high school) football fields.”

        It will cost nearly half a million dollars, but the school board won't pay a dime for it.

        On Monday, the Fort Thomas school board voted to allow the $260,000 synthetic surface to be installed at its high school after former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Cris Collinsworth made a surprise proposal at the meeting.

        Mr. Collinsworth, now a sportscaster on Fox NFL Sunday, is bringing together a group to pick up the tab for the additional $140,000 it will cost to prepare the Bermuda grass field for conversion. Mr. Collinsworth has four children coming through the Fort Thomas school district.

        Jay Treft, Fort Thomas assistant city administrator, said city council has approved the allocation of $6,500 over the next 10 years to help fund the project.

        The plan calls for the Highlands High School Athletic Boosters, the town's junior football league and Fort Thomas Lions Club to fund the rest of the $260,000. The field would be used for multiple purposes, including soccer and other city-run sports programs.

        Fort Thomas Superintendent Larry Stinson said the school district itself is not helping fund the project because of budget problems.

        Still, the project “put the board in a difficult spot. We're trying to tell people that we have difficulty with our finances and our budget, yet at the same time we're going to end up with this new field,” he said.

        “But you couldn't turn it down because it was a gift that can make money (for the school district).”

        Discussions are already under way about stadium naming rights, advertising, reserved seating and leasing the facility for sports leagues and special events. The field would be guaranteed for at least eight years, Mr. Collinsworth said.

        “We have to be very careful about who might be deriving (profit) from use of (the new field). Once it becomes public property, you still have to be very careful about how it's used,” Mr. Stinson said.

        A Kentucky Department of Education spokeswoman said there are very few restrictions on schools getting gifts from individuals or groups. The Kentucky High School Athletic Association also said it does not monitor donations to school districts.

        At Monday's school board meeting, Mr. Collinsworth said Highlands Athletic Director Dale Mueller “desperately” wants the synthetic field.

        The football powerhouse has won a record 15 state football championships over the past four decades.

        By this fall in Lexington, Fayette County Schools will have installed artificial turf at two of its five high schools — Tates Creek and Paul Laurence Dunbar. The Fayette district's other three high schools should get the turf within five years, said Ken Cox, director of high schools for the district. The school board is funding the entire project.

        Lexington Catholic High School also has artificial turf.

        “Because of the number of activities schools are required to host and as a goodwill gesture to the rest of the community, it becomes viable for the school district to install that sort of thing,” said Mr. Zaborniak of the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

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