New features at Danny Anderson Field

Stanton has unveiled some new features at Danny Anderson Field.
Justin Miller, facility director of the Stanton Viking Center, said Anderson, a Stantonite through and through, was a big part of growing the sport of baseball in the town and creating a rich tradition of baseball in the Stanton community.
“Danny was one of the pushers of baseball and helping with the youth, and he was a former minor league pitcher as well. He was not only pushing baseball here, but he was pretty talented player himself,” Miller explained. “When they secured the property for the field, they ended up naming it after him. I’m not sure the exact timeline of how long it’s been Danny Anderson Field, but I’ve been here for 10 years and it’s been Danny Anderson Field ever since I got here.”
Miller said recently, discussions started on how to not only update the existing space, but add to it.
“The original north field has always been a youth field for Little League play. It had a grass infield and a fence, and that was pretty much it. Two years ago at around this time, we started having some conversation about what we need to do to not only redo the existing field, but create additional ball fields here in town for the youth,” Miller said. “I had some meetings with some community folks and coaches and we tried to figure out what we could do, our numbers of participation for softball and baseball have grown tremendously over the last few years. We have a lot of kids in the elementary. Increased participation leads us to needing more space.”
Miller added that in the past, they’ve shared the softball field and Anderson Park, as well as the high school fields, which led to some complications.
“With using other fields, we have to go around what their schedules are, which is not easy to do when you’ve got more than 10 different youth teams needing space for practices and games. As we continued discussions, we knew that not only did we need to revamp that field to allow it to be playable for older groups, but we needed additional space,” advised Miller. “A group of us formed a ball field committee, and then we started figuring out where we could put it. We had some renderings drawn up and what we wanted it to look like and what we wanted it to feature.”
The group reached out to Odeys Sports Field Experts out of Omaha, Neb. For assistance on the upgrades.
“There was a lot of legwork, a lot of planning, and a lot of other work through that process. We went through what we wanted, including the infield dirt, the dugouts, the outfield fence, grass seed, and they worked well with us. We ended up coming up with the project, got some renderings made, and the rest is history.”
After all the work had been done on the renderings, Miller said the next step was to find a way to pay for the project.
“We started at $175,000 to be raised as our original goal.  We ended up opening that up at the end of March in 2024. We ended up sending out to a mailing list that we have that has a ton of alumni and local residents and just started a campaign for fundraising. We also applied for some grants, and we got some significant funding out of that too. We ended up cutting down on the budget a little bit from what Odeys told us and did some stuff in-house, which was accomplished through volunteers. Even though the budget was cut, we still went over, so we increased our end goal to $200,000 to be raised, and we raised a lot,” stated Miller.
By August of 2024, Miller said they had raised enough money secured that they felt comfortable enough to go ahead and proceed with the project.
“Odeys came in in September of 2024 and brought the subcontractors with them. Our goal was to have two fields ready to go by April 1 of this year. We weren’t too worried about looks, we just wanted two fields that were playable by that date. We were fortunate enough to have that done,” Miller said. “We’ve also raised enough funds to build a road and set up a concession stand as well.”
Donations are still being accepted, Miller said, and there are a few more amenities they want to add to the field expansion as funding allows.
“We’re still open to some things. Eventually, I’d like to have a mini tractor or a gator down there to do maintenance stuff. We were able to buy some maintenance things, but there’s going to be continued maintenance down there every year, that’s just how it goes with fields. Eventually, a different phase of the project will be putting lights up, at least on one field. So we’ll still take donations for that. It could be ready to go out for bid in a year, or three years, we just don’t know at this point,” commented Miller. “Eventually, we’d love to have the funds for that, and to get some more bleachers, or plant some more trees, But we’re very pleased with where we’re at now, and none of those projects have to be done immediately.”
While the grants certainly helped, Miller said the project received immense support from the community, and faster than he could have imagined.
“The support was tremendous, and it was the focal point of it. We have so many young families that are around here, and families outside of Stanton that have kids going to school here, and a lot of the younger parents that were a big push in it. They had some good ideas  and they saw the need for it. So did the grandparents of some of our kids. The community support gave us what we needed in order to get it completed. Being here, working in this town for a little more than seven years, I’ve learned that if something needs done, people are going to make sure it gets done,” Miller explained. “ I would have never dreamt that we would be able to have gotten it funded that quickly. I thought that maybe we’d get the north field redone and refinished completely, but I never thought we’d actually get as close to the point that we did and that the project almost completed.”
Miller is also hopeful that the new amenities will be yet another reason for folks to consider moving to Stanton.
“It can’t hurt anything for sure. This is just a piece to the puzzle. We’ve got the Stanton Child Resource Center, and the Stanton School District is starting to look at redoing some things there to be able to add the facilities which is not only going to keep kids here, but hopefully it will attract some new kids and some new families to be able to be here. With the way this community operates it was something that I felt that we needed, and other members of the community agreed, and it went well,” explained Miller.
After putting so much work into the project, seeing it come close to fruition, Miller said, was very exciting.
“I’d never been a part of a project of this magnitude or scale, as far as a special project, especially one with such a large financial piece to it. Now I’m able to sit back and see what it’s going to provide. I’ve got a young one coming up too, so I’m anxious for him to have this opportunity, as well as the other kids in the district, to enrich themselves with the new field.”
Miller added there were many hands that helped him out behind the scenes in making the project a reality. 
“Of course there was our committee, which in addition to me included Jenna Ramsey, Mickey Anderson, and Nick Gray. All of our volunteer coaches that we have from kindergarten all the way through eighth grade for softball and baseball helped pitch in with different ideas and helping with volunteering with different things. I felt really blessed to have that kind of support from so many folks in this town that feel that when something needs done, we’re going to do it. It puts a smile on your face to be able to see that you’ve provided stuff and heard a lot of good compliments all summer from other towns that come in and say they’d love to have a field like ours,” Miller said.
The ribbon cutting for the new field took place on July 12, during Stanton’s Homecoming celebration. Miller said being able to hold the ceremony during such an important event in Stanton made things extra special.
“We had discussed when we wanted to hold the ceremony and then somebody had mentioned Homecoming and we felt that there were going to be a lot of folks who donated to the project that helped out with making this become a reality that were going to be back in town for Homecoming weekend, and we felt, what better way to have the ribbon cutting than to have it with everybody here that may have had a part in it,” Miller said. “ I don’t know how many people we had down there, but it seemed like there was at least 100 folks that showed up for it. I was very pleased with the turnout. We did a little fun wiffle ball game which allowed the kids and adults to play on the new field, and then people just kept trickling in. It was a great feeling to have that many people there that noticed it and supported it. Even before the ceremony, I drove by the field several times and would see someone new checking it out and taking pictures every time I drove by.”
If anyone wishes to donate towards a future phase of the project, they can contact Miller at the Stanton Viking Center at 829-2900, or email vikingscenter@myfmtc.com or just stop in to the center.
Lastly, Miller said he wanted to express his appreciation to everyone that lent a helping hand in bringing the project to fruition.
“Our youth sports programs, could never be what they are without our youth coaches and all the volunteers that put in the time to help with our youth. I want to express my appreciation to all of our coaches who helped with this summer, as well as the members of the ball field committee. They sat in there on all these weekly calls that we had figuring out some details. John Mainquist was a part of that board as well.”