2024 Booster Club report, accomplishments

Corey Costelloe.

This being the last edition of Xs and Arrows this year I thought I would take a moment to highlight some of the great contributions that the Tehachapi Warriors Booster Club has made to Tehachapi High School athletes in 2024.

As President of the organization, I am proud to report we are back to full strength on the board of directors. Special thanks to Monica LaMonte, who stayed with us an additional two years following her daughter Laura's graduation from THS until we could find a suitable replacement. Thankfully, I would like to welcome Catherine Jones as our new Secretary of the board, along with Teri Giumara, who is serving as a board member at-large, a position we have been without for the last year or so. Both Catherine and Teri bring experience in dealing with youth sports to our organization and they will be amazing contributors to our efforts. They join Vice President Tiffany Ledesma and Treasurer Stacey Peel as our board is complete. Yes, it takes four strong women to keep me in line, they are fantastic to work with.

Looking back over the 2024 calendar year and we might have set a record for spending on our teams and meeting the needs outside of the funding provided by the Tehachapi Unified School District, which is the basis of our organization. In total we dispersed over $61,000 for our teams, while also facilitating other fundraisers for our Warriors.

We are immensely proud of some of the initiatives funded this calendar year, with plenty more to come in the remainder of the 2024-25 school year. Some of the major purchases included soccer shelters for the teams at Coy Burnett Stadium to the tune of $14,000. These custom-made shelters have transformed the place from a historic football field to a proper soccer pitch as they say. In conjunction with that, we recently approved over $3,000 for sideline parkas and pants for girls soccer to make sure both varsity and junior varsity squads had some additional team-specific gear to stay warm on the sidelines during our frigid winter matches.

One of our regular initiatives is our Athlete of the Month recognition, that costs about $4,000 annually to recognize the best in each sport with a custom t-shirt, letterman's jacket patch and grab and go breakfast during their early class periods. And speaking of patches, thanks to the success of our teams in the 2024 calendar year, the Booster Club purchased $5,500 in league championship patches for letterman jackets and spent an additional $4,600 to make sure our teams were provided meals while on long postseason trips.

Apparel and other gear continue to be a priority. While uniforms are mostly managed from school district funding, there is more to appropriately representing Tehachapi than the uniform worn on the fields and courts. We contributed over $3,000 to girls wrestling for warmups, mat attire and shirts for the coaching staff. We did the same for girls' basketball with $850 in shooting warm-up shirts and $420 for visors for the girls tennis teams. Additionally, boy's basketball was outfitted with new team and coaches' apparel. When the sidelines and bench all match, it is a positive reflection of Tehachapi as a whole, especially when playing games on the road.

A couple of other significant purchases centered around branded Tehachapi Warriors shade canopies for our teams competing outdoors including tennis, soccer, cross country and track. These canopies are heavy duty, custom with Tehachapi Warriors logos and colors and provided critical branding for our teams instead of utilizing a generic blue EZ Up purchased at the local sporting goods store. The trivial things make a tremendous difference in the look and feel of our teams, but they do not come cheap. About $6,000 was spent on the six canopies for the best quality, durability and customized look. We also awarded $3,000 in scholarships to college-bound student-athletes and another $3,400 spent to outfit the THS weightroom with additional training equipment that benefits a multitude of sports. As we know, that is in fact where championships are won.

We also assisted the baseball program in fundraising for a new scoreboard to replace the woefully small and aging one currently in place. While we handled the $12,000 purchase transaction, the teams and parents did most of the heavy lifting to find the donations. We are hopeful it will be installed by the start of the 2025 baseball season, but it is currently stuck in the bureaucratic Division of State Architect. We may need your help in pushing the local school district and the DSA to get this project done since it has been in the works for nearly two years with architectural drawings provided 12 months ago. We must do better for our kids.

While all of this is great, none of this would have been possible without the support of our individual members at all levels, those that bought raffle tickets, football Green Seats or participated in special events. Additionally, I would like to thank all our corporate sponsors, for stepping up every year and making major financial contributions to our nonprofit, which allows us to turn around and say "yes" when a team comes forward with a much needed request. Members and sponsors make that possible.

We are together making progress, this is a project that will never be finished, only fine tuned and adjusted from year to year. We at Tehachapi Warriors Booster Club Inc. cannot thank you all enough for your generous financial support, sponsorships and involvement in 2024. We still have lots of sports left before the end of the school year, but it sure is nice to reflect on a calendar year filled with so much success and improvement. Merry Christmas.

Corey Costelloe has covered NCAA, professional and local sports for more than 20 years as a reporter, broadcaster and athletics administrator. He advocates for the value of athletic competition and serves as the President of the Tehachapi Warriors Booster Club. He can be reached at [email protected].