Lighthouse Christian’s sports complex for homeschool athletes making progress

ROGERSVILLE, Mo. (KY3) – While its most well-known program is the high school football team that’s won five national homeschool championships, the Lighthouse Christian athletic program for students who are homeschooled has grown from 23 football players in 2006 to 900 athletes from 500 families playing in nine sports.

Those athletes come from 50 different zip codes from central and southern Missouri to northern Arkansas.

But as the homeschool athletic program has expanded, one problem has persisted.

“We have no home,” said Casey Haynes, the executive director of the Lighthouse Chargers Booster Club. “One of the biggest challenges that the organization faces is a place to practice. Hosting a game isn’t as critical as having a place to practice.”

All the homeschool teams have faced challenges in finding practice space.

“Take baseball,” Haynes pointed out. “With all the schools in the area practicing at the same time, every baseball field in the area is filled in the late afternoon and evening. And as with all our sports, they don’t have a place to go. So being homeschoolers they are very resourceful and in baseball they’ll find a pasture and mow out a flat grass field. In the early days of our football program you’d literally have parents line up their cars with their headlights on so the kids could practice in October and November when it got dark early.”

But this coming school year that nomadic existence is over for the football and soccer teams at least.

Two new permanent practice fields in Rogersville next to Highway 60 on Farm Road 205 are the beginning of what will be a new home for all of Lighthouse Christian’s sports. It’s on 25-acres of land across the street from Fellowship Bible Church, who agreed to a 99-year lease with Lighthouse Christian in 2022. The non-profit (who also hopes to eventually own the property) plans on turning the undeveloped land into a multi-million dollar sports complex.

The practice fields are literally and figuratively just the planting of the seeds in an overall project which will be built in multiple phases.

The first phase will include a football and track stadium with bleachers, a concession stand and parking. Other phases include baseball and softball fields, a fieldhouse with courts for basketball and volleyball plus a weight room and locker rooms.

The estimated cost for the first phase alone is $4-5 million with price tags on the other phases still to be determined.

The booster club launched its fundraising campaign last year and received large donations from Pete and Jan Herschend, co-owners of Silver Dollar City and other attractions.

“We’ve raised over $800,000 so far,” Haynes said. “I don’t think I would have thought that was possible but it was. So what does that mean for the future and the timeline? I am hopeful that we can get this thing done in the next five years.”

But Haynes admits that because homeschool families are spread out over hundreds of miles with no brick-and-mortar centralized school, fundraising can be a challenge.

“I definitely think it’s tougher for the homeschool community than it is for the public school side,” he said. “With all the students at one public school, it’s easy to communicate with that group. Again, we don’t have a home base so we don’t have a place all our students gather at where we can visit with them. Our athletes are spread out from Joplin to West Plains and from Arkansas all the way up to Jeff City. We’re also growing at a pretty rapid rate and you have to remember we’re an entirely volunteer-based organization. So think of an athletic program that’s bigger than Kickapoo as far as number of athletes involved, and then think of it being run entirely by volunteers. Nobody gets paid including our coaches and directors. In fact, it costs our coaches to be involved because they have to pay for their gas and hotels. So if you want to be involved, it’s definitely not for the money. It’s because you have a heart for these kids and a heart for the Lord.”

And when asked if he worries about the project never coming to fruition?

“God has been faithful,” Haynes answered. “His timeline is his timeline. He’s gotten us to this point and he’ll get us across the finish line. It’s just a matter of when.”

Haynes also pointed out that the timelines could change depending on donations.

“If we have someone who loves baseball and wants to build us two baseball fields tomorrow, we would absolutely let them write us the check and get started on those first,” he said. “And if someone has a heart for volleyball and they want to see a gymnasium built ASAP, they could write us a check and we’d get started on the gym as quick as we possibly could.”

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