page_title: Bartram Trail High School
section_title: Project Alaska Turf
hierarchical_section_title: Bartram Trail High School / History / Project Alaska Turf
caption_attribution_description: Artificial turf field of Barrow Whalers football team. The field was installed in Barrow, Alaska in August 2007. Photo by Dave Cohoe (2007).
context_page_description: Bartram Trail High School is a public high school in the St. Johns County School District, located in northwest St. Johns County, Florida that opened in 2000. The school was ranked number 327 by Newsweek magazine in the top 1,300 high schools in the United States in 2008.
context_section_description: In February 2007, Project Alaska Turf was started by Cathy Parker, a Bartram Trail High School parent and wife of a Bartram Trail football offensive coordinator. Project Alaska Turf was inspired by an Emmy Award winning ESPN documentary by Wayne Drehs on a community in Utqiagvik, Alaska. The documentary focused on a football program that was implemented in order to reverse high teenage suicide rates, accelerated drop out rates and increased teen drug abuse. Project Alaska Turf was funded by Bartram Trail, the Jacksonville Jaguars, ProGrass and the Grimes Companies. The project was aimed at raising money to provide a football team, the Barrow Whalers, an artificial turf field to replace their gravel-covered field. Since Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow), Alaska is above the Arctic Circle, grass doesn't grow there, resulting in their football field being made of dirt and gravel and causing injury to the players.
  The original goal was to raise $500,000 to make the field, but the ending target was eventually set to $800,000. The money covered the cost of buying, shipping and installing all one hundred and sixty tons of turf.
  The Barrow Whalers were invited to Florida on May 17 through the May 19 but the Whalers didn't arrive until June. Restaurateurs and other business owners provided them free room and board upon their arrival. During their visit to Jacksonville, they scrimmaged against another local team and toured Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, where the Jacksonville Jaguars play.
  The field was completed with $700,000 generated from the donation; $100,000 short of the goal. The Bartram Trail community worked for a long period of time and managed to move the field from Florida to Alaska by trucks, boats, trains, and on airplanes with help from ten different companies. The field was opened in time for the Barrow Whalers first game on August 17, 2007, which they won, 18-16, after being down by two touchdowns with three minutes left in the game. The game was the first live internet broadcast of a sporting event in the United States from north of the Arctic Circle and had NBC, ABC, ESPN, and most of Alaska's media there to cover the event.
caption: Side view of the Barrow Whalers' new turf field in Utqiagvik, Alaska.
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