When Poplarville kicks off the 2006 football campaign by hosting East Marion Friday night, it will be more than just an ordinary season-opener.

If everything goes according to plans, it will mark the last time that the Hornets will open the season in Dobie Holden Stadium on the campus of Pearl River Community College, the place they’ve called home since day one.

Plans are in the works for a stadium to be built on the Poplarville campus, and the hopes of school officials are that the new facility will be ready for the Hornets to kick off the 2007 football season in their new surroundings. Work has already begun on the new venue.

“We appreciate everything that PRCC has done for us and I have and the school has always had a great relationship with them,” Poplarville second year head football coach Lance Mancusco said. “But it was definitely a goal that I had when I got here, to someday have our own stadium, and we’re looking forward to that. We feel like in order for us to take our program to the next level, we need our own facility at our own school on our own campus. And if everything goes well, we hope to play there next season.”

Poplarville athletics director John Miller said the school has played its home football games at PRCC since the school first fielded a team.

Poplarville also has plans to play its soccer games on the new field as well.