BILLINGS — Gene Vennes called it "as good a football field as you're going to find in eastern Montana."
For the Plevna Cougars, finally, it's a place to call their own.
Last Saturday, Plevna High School hosted its first home football game since 1976 when it welcomed Westby-Grenora for a 6-Man Eastern division contest. The Cougars are currently in their second season going solo in varsity football since breaking away from their longstanding co-op with Class B Baker, but this was a moment 48 years in the making.
The Cougars didn't win — Westby-Grenora prevailed 51-12 — but the game was more like a celebration, and it was played in front of a big crowd in what is a small eastern Montana town.
"Oh my gosh. The community turnout was unbelievable," said Vennes, who coached junior high football in Plevna in the 1970s and was there when the program, then an 8-Man outfit, was shuttered.
The school eventually joined forces with Baker in the 1990s.
Plevna superintendent Dennis Gerke, who has served as a teacher and administrator all over the place for more than 40 years, with stops in Geyser, Centerville, Hardin, Rapelje and Fromberg, said Saturday was a prideful moment for all involved.
"You walk around that field and everybody from Plevna, it put a smile on their face," Gerke said. "People were talking and engaging and watching the game, cheering for our kids.
"It's something they haven't been able to do here for a very long time. The mood was awesome."
The program at Plevna was reinstated for the 2023 season in the Eastern division of the 6-Man ranks. Still, there was no place to play in a town located roughly 12 miles west of Baker.
So the Cougars played their home games last year in Ekalaka, which is about 50 miles south. That served as a stopgap option but it wasn't a long-term solution. Plevna needed its own place to play.
Thus, following a school board plan, the community came together this past summer to assemble a new 80-yard field atop a local cow pasture, unfurling five semi loads of sod on the ground and hauling water from the fire department's storage tanks to get the field wet so the grass would adhere.
They got bleachers from the Fallon County fairgrounds, the scoreboard was donated, and goal posts were erected. It was all put together by people in town and the surrounding area.
"We gathered up a whole bunch of volunteers," Gerke said. "All the labor was done by our community — our football coaches, our football players, all of it. All of the dirt was donated from local farmers and ranchers, we didn't pay a dime."
"It was amazing to me," Gerke said. "I've been doing this for a long time. This is my 42nd year in public education — 16 as a teacher and the rest as a superintendent. I've never seen anything like it, how fast we got it done and how all the community people came together to get it done."
Plevna, coached by Jeremy Robertus, began the 2024 season with an 80-6 victory over Brockton in Week 1 prior to welcoming Westby-Grenora to town last week.
The Cougars travel to Froid-Lake this week but will play their next home game Sept. 21 against Savage.
This season, though, represents a new beginning. Now, with a home field to call their own, Plevna looks to keep things moving in the right direction.
"The hope is that we can have a competitive program and sustain it," Gerke said. "We have a lot of boys, so our goal is really to have the program be consistent over a period of time."
