The annual Classic Bowl week of summer festivities will not take place in 2020.
Classic Bowl XXXII has been canceled, according to a release from the Classic Bowl Foundation.
“It is with heavy hearts the Classic Bowl Foundation has announced the decision to cancel Classic Bowl XXXII. Classic Bowl is a celebration of the best and brightest from Northwest Oklahoma, Southwest Kansas and the Texas Panhandle.
“We had high hopes that by delaying from May to early July we could proceed and honor our seniors who have already lost so much, with a much-deserved tribute. Classic Bowl has been, is, and always will be ‘all about the kids,’ and there were simply too many hurdles created by the COVID-19 crisis to overcome safely. Protocols that have been an issue for all of us during this pandemic are exacerbated when trying to apply them to over 600 high school students coming from 90 different communities, some of which are Covid “hot spots”. We simply do not have an adequate or appropriate mechanism to test, feed and house that many students from that many different areas without significant risk of exposure.
“There were concerns regarding the physical rigors of our participants playing and performing in the heat of the summer when many of those students have been unable to access gyms and other similar facilities. We will nevertheless honor those deserving students by keeping the scholarship program intact by awarding five $2,000 scholarships in football, girls and boys basketball, band and cheer. The foundation will also produce the popular souvenir Classic Bowl t-shirt for selected participants. Other means of recognition are also being developed by the foundation.
“The Classic Bowl Foundation mission remains the same to honor the best and brightest across the tri state.”