The old Amboy High School bleachers at The Harbor have sailed to a new port just a few miles down the road.

“It was a win-win across the board,” Katie Pratt, Amboy School Board president, said of the March 28 work that involved lifting and moving the old bleachers at the AHS football field to the Lee County 4-H Fairgrounds grandstand area.

Earlier this year, the board finalized plans for new, ADA-compliant bleachers to be installed at The Harbor, the Amboy Clippers football field and track at Amboy High School. The new bleachers, including concrete work, will cost around $380,000. The board used a state-approved purchasing cooperative to purchase the bleachers and the remainder of the cost will be covered by sales tax revenue.

“The old bleachers were not in the best shape and were not ADA-compliant. The new bleachers will have aisles with handrails, wheelchair spaces and a ramp for access,” said Joshua Nichols, Amboy school superintendent. The new bleachers, which will be installed in time for the first home football game at The Harbor in August, will seat around 755 on the home side and 162 seats on the visitor side.

The old bleachers, which were moved from their former location at the old Amboy Junior High School football field in 1999, were declared surplus property by the board at the February 2026 school board meeting.

“Either we could try to sell them or scrap them or dispose of them. I chose to give them to a local nonprofit who could and would haul them away. That way, the school district would not have to pay to demolish them or scrap them,” Nichols said.

Pratt, who also serves as secretary on the Lee County Fair Board, said when the board learned that the old bleachers might be replaced, fair board members were interested.

“For the last 8 or 9 years, we have rented bleachers from the Sterling Park District and brought them over for the Lee County 4-H Fair, four sets of bleachers, to make sure we had adequate seating for our grandstand events,” Pratt said.

Pratt and Nichols said that the fair board agreeing to move the bleachers out of their spot at The Harbor in a tight time frame sealed the deal.

“Helm is already here working on the concrete pad, so there is a limited amount of time to get things done. That’s why we had to accelerate the process of getting them out,” Nichols said.

On March 28 fair board members and community volunteers showed up with pickup trucks and 10 gooseneck trailers to lift and move the bleachers to their new home. Brian Eisele at Eisele Crane donated a portion of the day’s use of a crane to lift the sections of bleachers onto flatbeds.

“We had most of our fair board members, and then, from the community, Gary Morris, Drew Montavon and Adam Henkel all brought their flatbed trailers and came and helped us out,” Pratt said.

The old bleachers now have a new home at the fairgrounds in time for the 2026 Lee County 4-H Fair, which starts July 23.

“Our board will go ahead and make any sort of modifications we need and any repairs to them, which are very minimal, and we will give them a fresh coat of paint. We put them on a gravel pad, like our other bleachers,” Pratt said.