Iowa lottery winners fund new high school football stadium
DES MOINES, Iowa An Iowa couple who won a $202 million Powerball jackpot in September is donating $3 million to their son's high school for a new football stadium — but the gift comes with a catch.
The facility visitor's locker must be painted pink.
The Bondurant-Farrar school district accepted the $3 million donation from Brian and Mary Lohse on Monday, The Des Moines Register reported. The couple from the Des Moines suburb of Bondurant requested only that the new stadium be completed before the fall 2014 football season — their oldest son's senior year — and that the visiting team's locker room be painted pink.
"I was sort of half joking and half not, I suppose, but they said they'd do it," Mary Lohse said of her scheme, inspired by the University of Iowa visitor's locker room, which is also painted pink.
"It's supposed to put them in a certain soft frame of mind," Mary Lohse said. "It will certainly give all the players something to talk about."
The Lohse family has requested the stadium not be named for them. The Lohses' hope the stadium will be a community project and that local residents and groups will make other contributions.
Planning for the stadium has already begun. Local architects SVPA are handling the design. The stadium will include an academic wing and a fine arts auditorium.
"It not only gives us the opportunity to accelerate the stadium project, but to advance other plans for projects within the district as well," school board President Kristin Swift said.
The $3 million for the stadium will be released in three, $1 million increments.