jschneid@lsj.com

OVID - While I was off throwing a wedding ...

Coach Doug Meisel got the official word: Although Ovid was one of the smallest communities in the running for an athletic field makeover from Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, it did, indeed, make the final cut - thanks to the voting public.

Ovid's notoriously soggy community athletic field, where the youth football team practices and plays (when the carp aren't using it) got more than 20,000 votes. Not bad considering the population of Ovid, which is 30 miles northeast of Lansing, was 1,408 in July 2007.

And it's just possible the $15,000 renovation will occur before the team's first practice on Aug. 10.

"That would be fantastic," said Meisel, who runs Ovid-Elsie Youth Football and Cheerleading. Meisel learned last week that a makeover team will soon be on its way to Ovid.

As I've written previously, Meisel was watching this year's Super Bowl when he saw a commercial describing Kellogg's offer to fix up 30 community playing fields throughout the country. The cereal maker asked for nominations.

Wanting a safe field

Meisel knew an ideal candidate. He nominated the Ovid field and the Kellogg judges chose it as one of 100 semifinalists from more than 3,000 nominations.

Judges considered how often the fields were used, their overall condition, the feasibility of improving them, and how a field makeover would affect a community.

Meisel didn't care about bleachers, or a concession stand. He just wanted a safe, dry surface for his players.

Fifteen grand will make "an astronomical difference," he said.

Once Kellogg narrowed the 3,000 nominations to 100, the process was opened to the public. People were able to vote online for their favorite fields. The top 30 vote-getters were scheduled for upgrades, pending verification of facts.

So, one of these days a bus carrying the makeover team will roll into Ovid, and the community field will never be the same.