Schools consider 'virtual' trophy case, 'Hall of Fame'

Brandon Deromedi, activities director for the Hot Springs County School District, spoke with the Thermopolis Independent Record to elaborate on a proposal, for recognizing the achievements of student-athletes, that he first introduced to the HSCSD Board of Trustees on June 16.

Deromedi explained that he was in discussions to potentially secure a prospective platform for showcasing those student-athletes’ achievements “virtually,” given the challenges facing the school district in honoring those achievements through the limits of the district’s physical space.

“Of course, like any school district, we have hard copies of our student-athletes’ awards stored in our trophy case,” Deromedi said. “The two big problems with this are that people can’t view those awards unless they have physical access to the school, and that we’re running out of space in the trophy case.”

The same two problems affect the school district’s physical “Hall of Fame” — as Deromedi told the school board, “Our Hall of Fame Committee came to me and said, ‘We’re running out of room. What should we do?’” — which is why Deromedi has been investigating and negotiating options for a digital platform that could serve the functions of both a trophy case and a “Hall of Fame,” freed from the restrictions of physical space.

“We would have room enough to celebrate the achievements of all our student-athletes, past and present,” said Deromedi, who added that high-performers in academics and other activities could be recognized as well. “Not only would it provide a place to showcase even the most unique of awards, but with whichever award you happened to select on your screen, you’d be able to read an extended write-up about it.”

Deromedi expressed as much enthusiasm for the accessibility of the platform as for the depth of details it could provide — including distinguished athletes, various championships, record boards and even Olympians-to-be, because “I know we’ll have some of those in the near future” — as he pointed out that it could be linked to the school district’s website to potentially allow “anyone across the world” to take in the breadth of awards earned by the district’s student-athletes.

“It struck me, as we realized we were running out of space, that we could run something like a slideshow, celebrating our students’ successes,” Deromedi said. “As I considered it further, it occurred to me how we could post such a display in places we hadn’t thought of before.”

As Deromedi recounted to the school board, when he told a prospective vendor, “I kind of want to put (a display), if we get it, next to the concession stand,” the vendor told him, “Oh, perfect, I already have a layout that looks just like that.”

From there, Deromedi noted that the idea of “making it interactive really appealed to me, so that someone could take it with them wherever they went.”

At the school board meeting, Deromedi pointed out “one thing I thought was really cool,” which was that anyone with a smartphone could scan QR codes associated with the platform, “so anyone, anywhere could go to the school website, and check in on our athletic history.”

Deromedi declined to speculate on the potential price point of any such prospective platform just yet, although he did suggest that sponsorships by alumni and others could eventually be used to possibly defray the costs involved.

Deromedi did promise to supply further details on his proposal, and its progress, to the Hot Springs County School District Board of Trustees during their July 19 meeting, and pending whatever decision they might make at that time, he anticipates we could see a “virtual” trophy case and digital “Hall of Fame” implemented as soon as a couple of months after that, in time to greet students in the early fall of the 2022-23 school year.