New home is place Northern Lebanon Vikings can call their own

It’s a community asset and a community hub. It’s a place to make memories. It’s a space where kids can feel comfortable and be themselves.

Student-athletes at Northern Lebanon High School have a new home, and you know what they say about homes: A Vikings’ home is his or her castle.

“My favorite part about it is that it’s new, and that it represents a new phase and a new start for our current athletes and future athletes,” said Scott Kyper, who’s been the Northern Lebanon School District’s athletic director for four years. “The overall facility down there is much greater than it was. It’s a 10 out of 10. Our planning and renovation crew knocked it out of the park. We have received tons of remarks and compliments from alumni, fans, student-athletes, coaches and visiting teams that it’s so much better than it was.”

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After nearly 70 years, NLHS has a new gymnasium, and the Vikings have new turf to defend. Not a remodel or a renovation, Northern Lebanon opened its new high school gymnasium in September, and the girls’ volleyball team became the first varsity team to compete there.

The new build, which began in the early spring of 2024, took about 18 months to complete. The gymnasium upgrade is part of a bigger, ongoing project to modernize the school district’s campus at 345 School Drive in Fredericksburg, one that calls for old gymnasium to remain in use.

“It is absolutely a new home,” said Kyper. “It kind of triggers a fresh start. It gives our teams a sense of new belonging and tries to embrace what the new gym represents. There’s this kind of connection between the old and the new. I love what’s been done and I love that our kids are enjoying it.”

The new gymnasium was built on the north side of the existing Northern Lebanon High School and Middle School building, down a hallway and not far from the old gymnasium. The bigger and more modern gymnasium features as much as 20 extra feet of space from the basketball courts’ end lines to the walls and as much as eight extra feet from the sidelines to the stands.

The new gymnasium increases seating capacity from 600 to 800 fans and includes two new team locker rooms, two new health and physical education locker rooms, media space positioned at the tops of both sides of the bleachers, a wrestling mat hoist, drop-down batting cages for baseball and softball, a new statistic-friendly scoreboard and an LED-lighted timer and scorers’ table.

With a ticket booth to the right and the newly organized trophy case to the left, the all-glass-window entrance to the foyer draws visitors into the pending athletic action.

“It’s an incredibly welcoming lobby,” said Kyper. “People have space for conversation, to eat and to hang out, much more than at the old entrance.”

Almost every interscholastic team at NLHS will have an opportunity to practice or engage in sporting events at the new gymnasium. The facility, which can also serve as classroom space or a place for meetings, will be heavily used year-round, but never more than it is used during the current winter season when the boys’ basketball, girls’ basketball and wrestling teams are active there.

“You feel refreshed every time you go down there,” said Kyper. “It does present some new challenges with new technology and systems. But we want to provide the best possible experience for our student-athletes and those who come to our school. In the scope of renovations, the planning committee said, ‘Do we want to update, or do we want new?’ And they kind of went with new and brought us into modern times. People can’t stop talking about the environment that a facility like this has created.”

District superintendent Gary Messinger echoed those thoughts.

“We are very excited about the flexibility this new gymnasium provides us,” said Messinger in an email to LebTown. “We now can host larger wrestling, basketball, and volleyball events that we were unable to do in the old gymnasium.”

“I believe we were able to maintain a cozy environment similar to the old gym but provide a much better experience for our fans.”

The Northern Lebanon school district sponsors 20 interscholastic sports teams. During the 2024-25 school year, some 530 Viking student-athletes in grades 7 through 12 competed in sports.

“I think athletics play a vital role in the development of students,” said Kyper. “It’s about discipline and connections with teammates and the lessons from both victories and losses. It helps student-athletes grow into well-rounded individuals.

“The student-athletes love that they get to walk into a brand-new facility. Now that we have this the seniors are so appreciative and nostalgic because they can say they’re the first class to play in the new gymnasium.”

The new gymnasium is part of an on-going overall restructuring project that the school district embarked on about five years ago. Earlier, Northern Lebanon had constructed a new district-encompassing elementary school to the east of the high school/middle school building, installed a new outdoor turf field in front of the main entrance to the high school/middle school and performed a complete overhaul of its Fred Gahres Stadium facility.

“They’re related in that the school district and community are committed to providing the best venues for fans and student-athletes,” said Kyper. “As part of the renovation process a decision was made to build a new gymnasium. I think it’s important to keep in mind that not only do we want our young men and women to appreciate the facility, but we also want everyone to enjoy something positive when they walk in the door. In a lot of communities, athletics are the fabric of those communities. What better way to celebrate these student endeavors than with a new facility?”

The Northern Lebanon High School and Middle School building was constructed in 1957 when schools in communities like Fredericksburg and Jonestown were joined to form one school district. It is believed the high school gym was part of that original structure, but it is unclear how many times over the last 68 years the facility was renovated.

“There was so much tradition that went on at that court,” said Kyper. “It’s stood the test of time because it’s still being used. We’re not letting go of the old because it’s still functional.”