AP. East Palestine High School senior Mia Lee talks with track coach Bonnie Sansenbaugher on March 6 in East Palestine. Athletes are navigating spring sports following the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern freight train derailment.

EAST PALESTINE — East Palestine’s proud track and field tradition runs back decades, but the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern train derailment nearly brought several long-running meets to their knees.

East Palestine athletic director Dwayne Pavkovich looked over the roster of schools set to participate in his four big spring meets as government officials and media swarmed the school in the month of February. What he saw was the schools willing to come to East Palestine running in the single digits for each meet.

“I was worried, I am not going to lie,” Pavkovich said.

Through leg work and organizing an effective communication strategy to cut through the misinformation, the East Palestine City School District was able to dip into the deep well of scientific experts provided to it to reverse course and bring those meets back to respectable numbers.

For instance, April 8’s Ward Invitational at Reid Memorial Stadium will have 17 schools instead of the 25 it had in 2022. The Bulldog Invitational, set for April 15, will have 19 schools compared to 28 last year. The East Palestine Relays on April 21 will be down to 12 schools instead of the 22 from a year ago, while the Howard Parker Middle School Invitational on May 5 will feature 12 schools instead of 18 the year before. The Columbiana County Cross Country Meet also is set for full attendance at Reid Memorial Stadium on May 2.

Even once momentum was established to convince districts it was safe to play sports in East Palestine, the district brought in many experts for a meeting March 22. Representatives from 31 school districts from around the region attended, and the message was clear.

“Hearing from experts that are there making first-hand decisions played a big role,” Pavkovich said. “I think Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the Ohio Department of Health, made the statement to look at it from his perspective. (East Palestine superintendent) Chris Neifer brought 1,000 students to this district. They had no reservations. (Dr. Vanderhoff) said he was responsible for the health and well-being of everyone in the state, and he said if there was a problem with air quality or water, he would never put people in that area.”

Pavkovich said he and others never really thought about the pressure some of the officials were under until they started explaining it, and he thinks that helped a lot in convincing others that you don’t need to stay away from East Palestine.

While the meetings and communications with other school districts managed to stop the stigma from becoming a bigger problem for East Palestine’s regular athletic opponents in the Youngstown media market, the areas toward Lake Erie and further toward the west are still influenced by more of a national news and social media presence, and that’s going to take time to calm the fears of outsiders.

“Truthfully it’s more of the schools from the Cleveland and Akron areas and even some to the south of us below Columbiana County that have had concerns,” Pavkovich said. “I think once you get more outside the local news area, and people are using more national news to get their information, I think we’re seeing a distinct difference of opinion between parents and in school administrators.”

As far as the high school’s baseball and softball seasons are concerned, the teams have played their games at Next Level Sports Complex in Unity for a few years now, so nothing will change there since the site is nearly 4 miles from the high school.

East Palestine City Park’s tennis courts were home to the Bulldog tennis team, but they’ll head to Columbiana’s Firestone Park to play home matches this spring.

“There are still a lot of contractors at the park (treating the water on Leslie Run), so it’s just not conducive to have student-athletes there at this time,” Pavkovich said.

East Palestine City Park is also home to the school’s cross country course, so come fall that might have to change as well.

“We are right now in the evaluation process of having contingency plans, but our goal is to run in the park,” Pavkovich said. “But you know, we also have to look at contingencies. If we’re still dealing with the same variables we are now, just from an aesthetic standpoint, we’ll have to look at changing it.”