THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Saturday, May 30, 2015

When the Lakeland School District needed a home for its growing high school's football and track program, Richard "Dick" Corbit was the guy with the energy and organizational skills to make that happen.

This fall, the Lakeland Hawks will celebrate a 28th season of football on Corbit Field in Rathdrum.

It will be first without its namesake.

CORBIT PASSED away on May 14 at his current home of Placerville, Calif.

Corbit worked many years as an operating engineer and served as the business manager of Local 12 in Southern California during the '70s. He retired and moved to North Idaho in 1983 and was a resident and active member for many years.

He was the driving force behind envisioning and pulling the community together to erect the athletic field at Lakeland High School in Rathdrum, consequently named Corbit Field.

"He was the president of the booster club here for quite a while," former Lakeland High principal Charles "Chuck" Kinsey said. "We'd talked about how we can promote the football field and upgrade the facilities around it."

That field they played on was the field at the Lakeland Junior High.

"It really took a guy like Dick to make this happen," Kinsey said. "He put his effort behind it, and did a lot of the organization. When we finally laid sod, it was a lot of community effort. The district didn't have the money to fully fund it at the time, so it was a lot of volunteer work to make it happen."

Kinsey retired from the district in 2008.

Kinsey said that when they were finally putting sod down on the field, they had up to 100 volunteers to help.

"He really did everything to promote fundraising efforts for the track and bleachers as well," Kinsey said. "He was involved in a lot of different ways with that project."

Corbit lived at StoneRidge Golf Course in Blanchard and was honored during the 25th anniversary celebration at the field in 2012.

"We'd make contact with him from time to time," Kinsey said. "The biggest thing with him is that he was able to visualize how you could put together a massive project such as that. He was just the pusher to get that done."

A memorial service for Corbit will be held at a later date in Idaho, according to his obituary.

Growing in students - and eventually branching out to two separate high schools in the district - the bleachers at the field have remained closer to the high school.

"It wasn't necessarily Dick's design, but we focused all efforts on how things might happen and the best supervision and control during events," Kinsey said. "We knew as a growing school, it kind of a matter of the bleachers on the other side were something we'd need, but the stadium seating what what we could afford."

TERRY KIEFER coached the Hawks football team for 25 years, finishing with a 173-71-2 record.

"He was a great guy to be around," Kiefer said. "He was really knowledgable about everything you talked to him about. He was a real cordial guy and really took an interest in the athletic field - and really did a great job. When we were talking about that field, he was really receptive to all different kinds of ideas and to do what was the best thing, but not always the easiest. He was a great person to be around."

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at JEPressSports.