Although it still appeared to be a modern, centrally located facility that was capable of hosting any number of events held in our state’s capitol, the Frankfort Convention Center is soon to be no more.

I’ve been following this story for a few months now, and until just the past few weeks, thought that likely the decision to raze the facility would be reversed and instead of a complete rebuild, a deep-rooted remodel would take place instead.

Now it seems certain that won’t be the case and the entire facility, along with the adjacent Capitol Plaza Hotel, will be torn down and a completely new convention center facility will be built.

While that may not be earth shaking news for most Clinton County residents, it does come into play for fans of high school basketball when you consider that for the past few years, the Frankfort Convention Center has been the home to the All ‘A’ Classic State Basketball Tournament.

Since the tournament went state-wide (first for boys in 1990, then girls in 1991), the event that at one time was billed as the “world’s largest invitational high school basketball tournament”, has moved to four locations for the state level portion of the competition.

I went to the first one in 1990 at Memorial Coliseum and have been to a host – but not all by any means – of All ‘A’ Classic state tournaments since. Later host sites have included Rupp Arena and Eastern Kentucky University’s McBrayer Arena before eventually landing in Frankfort.

The All ‘A” program is one of the most important and beneficial things to ever be developed in Kentucky for the high school aged participant.

Although the concept began with the basketball tournament for a few small high schools in northern Kentucky, today it not only includes that roundball event for the smallest high schools in Kentucky, but has now been expanded to include several additional sports in addition to JROTC and academic, music and art events as well.

Last year, the organization handed out over $100,000 in scholarship to more than 100 high school students in Kentucky who competed in the now broad lineup of events.

While the All ‘A’ organization appears to be here to stay – and we should all hope that it is – the backbone of the signature is that state-wide basketball tournament.

Several potential sites have been mentioned, ranging from a return to EKU to northern Kentucky to the Kentucky Horse Park and even to the East Kentucky Convention Center in Pikeville.

It’s important to the KHSAA and high school basketball fans across the state in that it helps to squash the always underlying prod by some to move Kentucky high school basketball into a class system (spit, spit) by giving those 100 small schools their own event.

It’s important to the economy of the state in terms of tourism spending for the community that gets to host the event (state and local tourism fees for motel use and restaurant purchases) and even to the local communities that have teams participating and thus send families and friends on the road to support their teams.

But most importantly, it benefits the students who get to showcase their talents in front of scouts who gather for the week of games by the best of the smallest – often resulting in scholarship offers that simply wouldn’t be made if the tournament didn’t exist.

Watching this as it continues to develop, and will certainly keep my readers informed.

Meanwhile – the sun shines sometimes between rain storms, so while we still can …

Let’s take it outside!