HURRICANE, W.Va. (WSAZ) – Between the Hurricane Middle School soccer team and other leagues, the field near West Teays Valley Elementary hosts hundreds of kids to play soccer every week.
Greg Harkins volunteers his time, spending three and a half hours each time to make sure the grass is cut — all so the soccer ball rolls properly when a player goes to make a pass or score a goal.
“I’d say 200 to 300 hundred people go through that during the week,” Harkins said. “I mow the field line … did everything I needed to do and all week long and then prepared it before the games.”
Harkins was helping to organize jerseys after his grandson’s first season on the Hurricane Middle School soccer team. He noticed the riding mower and a new weed eater were missing inside the equipment building.
“You can’t put it in the trunk of your car. I mean, this is a full-sized riding lawn mower with a 48-inch cutting deck,” Harkins said.
He says there was no equipment to load the mower onto a trailer, and the garage was locked.
“Because you either had to drive it down the road or load it on a trailer in the back of a truck, and we never took it from the field,” Harkins said.
Other leagues still practice on the field, and the team’s budget would fund equipment like a mower. A new or used mower goes for thousands of dollars.
Harkins said the grass must be cut for kids to play on the field, so a new or used mower or a lawn care company are options. He said all of those options would have to come out of the team’s budget.
The tight budget for a middle school soccer team does not allow for spending thousands of dollars on a lawn mower.
“Our next step now is to find a new mower. We are in a position where it is OK now, but in a few weeks it may not be OK anymore,” Harkins said.
Harkins hopes to get it back, and law enforcement in Hurricane and Putnam County are working to help.
“If they see all of a sudden someone has a riding mower they didn’t have last week, contact the Hurricane Police,” Harkins said.
The mower has been missing since Oct. 17, according to Harkins.
The Mayor of Hurricane is also working to find the mower, sharing a post on social media.
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