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KEARNEY, Neb. — After years without a functioning video board, UNK officials plan to have a new one installed at Cope Stadium before the end of the football season.

Athletic Director Marc Bauer says the school’s new video board could be installed and ready by the Homecoming football game against Pittsburg State on Oct. 12. The contractors initially told Bauer they expected the scoreboard to be a four-month build, but came back and said it might be done a month early.

The new video board will be a Daktronics product.

“I know our video coordinator who does all of our production, Jeff Babl, he’s excited,” Bauer said. “He’s excited to get his hands on this thing and see what it does and see how it can change the atmosphere for our fans and our student-athletes.”

All that’s up right now is the structure to support the video board. The traditional analog scoreboard is still being used but is no longer attached to the structure.

UNK is using portable speakers for its fall sports for the second consecutive year. Bauer says the previous scoreboard structure had eight built-in speakers. Five of them were fried, perhaps by a lightning strike. A new permanent set of speakers will be in place before the 2025 football season.