One day, when Angeleyea Jackson drives past Buchtel Community Learning Center’s football stadium, she’ll be able to point up at the griffins guarding each side of the concession stand and tell her children she helped make them.
The Buchtel CLC senior, alongside classmate Ammar Alawamola, spent several days this summer carving the wings of the griffins.
“I think this is a great experience,” said Jackson, who after high school graduation plans to pursue becoming an electrician, bricklayer or carpenter. And to think: A scheduling fluke placed her in construction and masonry at Buchtel CLC — her initial career pathway of sports medicine was full.
Jackson and Alawamola on Saturday, Sept. 5 joined students, staff, alumni and other supporters of Akron Public Schools at 1040 Copley Road to celebrate the project’s completion before Buchtel CLC’s first home football game of the 2026 season. The event not only marked a celebration of the masonry students’ work, but the end of a long road for Buchtel CLC supporters who raised money and lobbied for upgrades to the school’s facilities since the 1980s.
The $2.5 million project includes a new press box and concession area, as well as separate restroom and storage facilities and an upgraded track surrounding the M. Montague Buckner Field.
“Everything is beautiful. Construction work is excellent,” said Alawamola, who recently moved to Akron from Syria and brought with him his love of construction. He spoke in Arabic, translated through a phone app.
Each senior carved a set of wings from PVC, said Masonry and construction teacher Matthew Simpson. The project’s architect gave them a scaled image to project onto material sheets, with each item hand-carved with electric sanders and dremels before being painted to match the griffins’ bodies.
And now, they are on display nearby, keeping a watchful eye on the football stadium’s spectators.
“For me,” Simpson said, “it’s cool, they get to look outside of our big garage door and it’s going to be right in their face.”
Upgrades mark ‘a full circle moment’ for Buchtel supporters
Buchtel PTA vice president Diana Autry, recounted the years-long challenge to secure improvements.
But students believed in themselves, when no one else did, Autry added, and the community filled in gaps — an attempt to use the old Rubber Bowl’s football turf on the West Akron school’s field.
Despite raising more than $20,000, Autry said, it was not enough. But the PTA was undeterred. Members painted the old concession booth, purchased new field goals and shelled out for shrubbery that spelled out Griffins.
In 2022, the Cleveland Browns installed a synthetic turf field, and two years later, Autry — as president of the school board — pushed the stadium’s additional upgrades close to the finish line.
“This is a full circle moment,” said Autry, who served on the Akron Board of Education from 2019 to 2025.
The PTA has already set its sights on the next project: lighting for Tim Flossie Stadium.
Buchtel principal: ‘We’re here to set a trail behind us for those to follow us’
Principal LaCresia Denson remembered a time at Buchtel CLC when the field was more of a mud pit than anything else. The track was full of rocks and cinder and she was thankful she lived down the street so she didn’t have to use one of the on-site port-a-potties.
Despite the less-than-stellar amenities of the past, 1040 Copley pride runs deep in its program. The Griffins won back-to-back state football championships in 1987 and 1988 and produced NFL players such as Ricky Powers, Antonio Pittman and Jarrod Wilson.
On Saturday, Denson looked to her students — cheerleaders and marching band members seated beside the temporary stage at the 50-yard line, and those in the bleachers ready for the football season’s home opener.
“It fills me with pride to know that you guys join a legacy of people that have overcome barriers [and] obstacle after obstacle and still succeed,” Denson said. “ I want you to know how important you are to this community — we’re not just entertainers, we’re not just here to win sports, we’re here to set a trail behind us for those to follow us.”
RJ McCraney, a senior and head drum major for the high school’s marching band, pledged to take care of the facilities and pass them on to the next generation of Griffins.
“We’re going to be good stewards of everything because you need to have that certain grit,” McCraney said, “that resilience, the integrity, the fortitude, the focus and the strengths to be a Buchtel Griffin.”
Buchtel press box was one of several ongoing projects
Originally, restrooms were planned for the same footprint as the Buchtel concession stand, but size constraints forced it into its own, freestanding, building — at an additional $500,000 price tag.
It was one of several concurrent projects for the district. The new Pfeiffer Elementary School and Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts campus is set to open in Kenmore for the 2028-29 school year. A new North High School will open the following school year.
“For too long, Buchtel waited its turn,” said Summer Hall, an APS board member and Buchtel alumnus. “But today, 1040 stands up. Somebody heard us, somebody listened and today our students have a facility they can be proud to call home.”
