Rob:  High school football is a Friday night tradition in Oklahoma.  Just follow the stadium lights and you’ll find two teams squaring off, cheerleaders cheering, and two full marching bands ready for half time.  Yet, amid all this enthusiasm, school administrators are struggling with how to fund the fuel to get everyone there.  Our Russ Jowell traveled to Ada, Oklahoma, to learn more about Friday night’s… fuel costs.
Russ Jowell:  Mike Weber and his Ada cougars are busy gearing up for another big season on the gridiron here in Oklahoma.
Mike Weber:  Been in two weeks of practice, we have our first scrimmage today.
Russ:  High school locker rooms like this one in Ada start to come alive about this time every year. As the 2008 high school football season gets underway in Oklahoma, coaches across the state are busy training their players for the tackle.
Whistle.
Russ:  While school administrators across the state are busy tackling the ever-increasing cost of fuel.
Pat Harrison:  Last year our fuel costs went from nearly fifty thousand dollars to a hundred thousand dollars and this year they’ll be more than that.
Russ:  Pat Harrison, superintendent of the Ada school district, says that while he is concerned about the effect fuel prices may have on the upcoming school year, his district is not cutting any bus service…yet.
Pat:  If the price of oil continues to go up and if fuel continues to escalate we may get to that point somewhere down the line.  We’re fortunate in the fact that our school district is small area-wise compared to many rural districts who have transportation areas of hundreds of square miles. We’re fourteen square miles.
Russ:  But regular routes alone don’t tell the whole story in Ada.  Recent realignments in high school athletics have found the Cougar football team in a new conference this year.  And with a new conference comes new longer road trips the team will have to make this year.
Mike:  We do have one trip at 183 miles to Stilwell which is further than Fort Smith, Arkansas, if you know where Stilwell is. And I believe we also go 164 miles to Coweta this year.  Next year we’ll be going 177 miles to Tahlequah so we’re going to be making some trips.
Russ:  Superintendent Harrison says that due to their distance, special attention will be paid to extra curricular trips like those for football, and he has asked his staff to be especially mindful of their bus usage.
Pat:  Those kinds of trips, we’re going to watch closely, we’re just not going to take two buses unless we have to take two, we’re not going to take three unless we have to take three.  If we can take two instead of three or one instead of two, that’s what we’re going to do.  Anything to keep from rolling these buses around any more than we have to because of the gas mileage they get and the expense it costs just to keep them full of fuel.
Keeva Ward:  Basically economy-wise, they all use about the same.
Russ:  Ada transportation director, Keeva Ward, says that while consolidation does mean fewer busses on the road, it also means that those busses must carry bigger loads.
Keeva:  When you get them full there’s a lot of kids on those buses and they carry a big load. And its never, our fuel miles per gallon is never anymore than seven, and that’s good…that’s good for us.
Russ:  But in spite of economic woes, Harrison says that his first priority is to ensure that all his students and athletes have everything they need in order to succeed.
Pat:  We’re not going to prohibit someone from going we’re going to take everybody that wants to go or needs to go.  We’re gonna take what’s necessary for our kids to go and perform and do whatever they need to do.
Rob:  On average, Ada uses between twenty-four to twenty-eight hundred gallons of diesel each month.  If the fuel stays over four dollars a gallon, that adds up to around a hundred thousand dollars a month and Ada is not alone.  Several school districts, including Tulsa’s independent school district, are cutting services due to the high cost of fuel.