WILKES-BARRE, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — An iconic piece of history for the Kingston Armory has been restored thanks to the efforts of a student from Plymouth.
The student took on a massive project to rebuild the old scoreboard, and it’s finally done.
Damon Williams doesn’t shy away from a challenge, and when he found the old Kingston Armory scoreboard in need of repair, he embraced the test of his skills, skills he learned as a student at the West Side Career & Technology Centers.
“It was sitting in our storage room over there. It just looked really interesting, it looked like it would be something really difficult and I like to challenge myself. So I saw the scoreboard there, I heard it didn’t work at all. I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to learn and increase my knowledge,” said Williams.
The scoreboard had been out of service and in storage for many years.
“I think it was there for, like, 60 years, maybe. It was there a long time from what I heard,” stated Williams.
It had been used for countless games over the years for the former Wilkes-Barre Barons basketball team and various high school games.
“All the old wiring held up pretty nicely. The mechanics that moved the dials that pushed on the pins to change the numbers were faulty. They became unaligned and if you tried to spin the numbers they wouldn’t go to the right place and nothing would light up,” described Williams.
The scoreboard had been moved to the West Side Technical Center 10 years ago while repair work on the windows at the Armory was underway.
“The clock part with the score, all that, all the wiring in there was bad. Everything in there had to be unsoldered and I needed to run all new wire to all of it,” explained Williams.
It required out-of-the-box thinking to solve problems for antiquated technology.
“It was something I hadn’t done before because all the technology in there was old. It’s something that not a lot of people know how to do. There was not even any information on the internet or anything so I literally just had to figure everything out for myself. It was a really enlightening experience to show how good I could be at troubleshooting if I really put my mind to something,” said Williams.
After two months of work his project, he was done. Damon hopes that other students who enjoy taking things apart can learn from his persistent spirit.
“To not get frustrated if you don’t get something immediately. Cause the biggest part about learning something like this is you just gotta keep going at it, you gotta keep trying,” said Williams.
While the scoreboard has been made functional again, Damon says it can’t function at a live game level. It’s going to be mainly ceremonial.
Here’s to you, Damon!
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