BEAUMONT, Texas — The Beaumont Independent School District Board approved the rebranding of the district's stadium.
In a 6-0 vote, the board approved the name "Doggett Family Stadium" and showed a rendering of the stadium with the new name.
In April 2023, the board approved a bid by Doggett Equipment Services Group in a 6-1 vote to purchase naming rights to Memorial Stadium for $1.1 million over 10 years.
Beaumont ISD Superintendent Dr. Shannon Allen previously told 12News the money made from the bid can be used to possibly get a new scoreboard and maintain the stadium.
School Board President Robert C. Dunn Sr. says money can also be used to help give teachers raises.
"We've lost many millions of dollars because of our ADA average daily attendance so we haven't always had enough money to give our teachers raises so this will give us some leeway here to get some thing in the district done," said Dunn.
Beaumont ISD joins 24 other districts in Texas that have sold the naming rights to their stadiums.
Doggett is one of North America's largest heavy equipment distributors, with annual sales in excess of $2 billion and a workforce of more than 2,100 full-time employees, according to their proposal package.
The stadium first opened in 2010 and was named after Carrol "Butch" Thomas the school district's first black superintendent.
In 2018, Beaumont ISD voted to change the name to Beaumont ISD Memorial Stadium. This came three years after a forensic audit revealed Thomas' administration mismanaged a $389 million bond back in 2007 which funded the stadium.
In January 2022, the board passed a motion to change the name, but school officials didn’t specify if it would be back to Carrol “Butch” Thomas.
Four people voted in favor of the name change, two voted against and one person abstained.
The January 2022 meeting was the third time in four years the school board has discussed the renaming of the Beaumont ISD Memorial Stadium.