LAFAYETTE, Ga. - Johnny Cash sang a song about a "Ragged Old Flag."
Now a few LaFayette High School alumni are focused on saving the ragged old stadium Cash helped build, but finances in the red could take precedence over the Man in Black.
"There's a lot of potential here," said Shannon McConnell, a 1986 LaFayette graduate, as he walked along the crumbling concrete steps at the school's old football stadium Thursday.
McConnell hopes to raise enough money to refurbish the structure one piece at a time, starting with the home stands, locker rooms and concession stands. He hopes the high school can hold its homecoming football game there in 2011.
"The idea is to kind of rebuild it the way it was," he said. "It's not really that far of a leap."
McConnell plans to capitalize on the stadium's history to generate interest: It was funded in part by a benefit concert the legendary Cash held in 1970.
The day after the concert, The Associated Press reported 12,000 people attended the show, which included June Carter, the Carter Family and the Statler Brothers in addition to Cash and his Tennessee Three.
Ticket prices ranged from $4.50 to $8.50, and the concert raised about $75,000, according to the news articles.
Cash agreed to do the concert partly as a favor to Sheriff Ralph Jones. According to news archives, Cash was arrested in Walker County in 1967 on suspicion of intoxication. Jones released Cash after a night in jail and dropped the charges, but lectured the music star on "the evils of drugs and alcohol," according to AP archives.
Vic Burgess, a 1992 LaFayette High graduate and singer-songwriter who is helping McConnell, envisions an annual Johnny Cash Festival with several bands playing tributes at the stadium. The proceeds, he said, could be put back into the restoration effort.
He acknowledged that projects everywhere have been hurt by the recession. To put it in the words of a Cash song about being broke, the city's "busted."
"Truly, before we do all of that we have to get the place fixed up," Burgess said. "In this economy, we've really got to watch what we spend our tax dollars on."
Mayor Neal Florence said the city is walking a thin financial line and doesn't have "the pot of gold that it's going to take to fix it up."
He said he would support fundraising efforts, including a music festival, but noted that the city already has a football stadium and places for concerts.
McConnell's plan is overly ambitious, the mayor said, explaining it would cost "half a million dollars right off the bat."
"There's no reason for us to spend that money," he said. "I'm not going to run us into financial crisis because somebody wants to have a concert."