The donations from alumni and other supporters of Butler County’s only Catholic high school are already transforming the school campus in western Hamilton.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
This week a new parking lot — phase one of the two-phase athletic complex project — will be opened to students, staff and visitors, said Brian Pendergest, president of the more than half-century old school.
“It’s the largest project and expansion we ever undertaken. The one missing piece to our campus was not having an on-campus, athletic facility,” said Pendergest.
“There is a lot of excitement about the project. And there is a lot of excitement about the direction it’s going and what it will do to unite our campus and our current students, our alumni and our community supporters.”
Since 1966 when Badin opened, the school and its outdoor boys’ and girls’ sports teams have been prep nomads.
Without a campus playing field, sports stadium or track, Badin was forced to cobble together agreements with neighboring school districts such as Hamilton, Fairfield, Ross and Edgewood and others to rent playing fields for its athletic teams.
But in 2022 Badin officials proposed and won approval from the city of Hamilton allowing them to purchase and re-zone the land for the 343-space parking lot.
And now, ground will soon be broken on the 2,400-seat stadium, sports field, track and athletic complex and its adjacent practice field.
The goal, said Pendergest, is to open the stadium in spring of 2025 with first-ever track meets and other spring semester sporting events.
In southwest Ohio, Moeller High School in northern Hamilton County is the only other Cincinnati Archdiocese high school without an on-campus sports stadium. Purcell Marian High School in Cincinnati recently opened its own.
Badin enrolls more than 700 students from throughout Butler County and other communities in the region.
Among school officials, said Pendergest, “there is a lot of gratitude” for the public’s response to date to the fundraiser.
It’s a tribute, he said, “to our alumni and community members who believe in Badin and the mission of our school.”
(NOTE: This story has been updated since first published to reflect that Purcell Marian has its own stadium now.)
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