Fred G. Hughes Stadium at the Robert W. Plaster Complex is located at 3950 Newman Road is a 7,000 seat football stadium for

Missouri Southern State University Missouri Southern State University (Missouri Southern, MSSU, or MoSo) is a public university in Joplin, Missouri. It was established in 1937 as Joplin Junior College. The university enrolled 4,346 students in Fall 2021. History Missouri Southern ...

Joplin, Missouri Joplin is a city in Jasper and Newton counties in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Missouri. The bulk of the city is in Jasper County, while the southern portion is in Newton County. Joplin is the largest city located within both Jas ...

The stadium opened in 1975 and cost $1.7 million. It claims to be the first state college stadium in Missouri to use artificial turf. In 2003 its turf was replaced with Sprinturf. The previous turf in place in 1988 has been BaspoGrass-S. Its capacity is 4,700 fans on the west side and 2,300 spectators on the east. The stadium was named in honor of Fred G Hughes, president of the College Board of Regents between 1964 and 1978. It was designed by Joplin architect firm Allgeier, Martin, and Associates. In February 2011, the Robert W. Plaster Foundation announced two seven figure gifts to the school to build baseball field and a multi-purpose athletic facility adjacent to the football field and to renovate Fred G. Hughes Stadium. The whole complex is to be named Robert W. Plaster Sports Complex (there is another complex of the same name at Missouri State University). After additional funding is raised for the Hughes renovations, that field is to be renamed Robert W. Plaster Stadium. School officials are debating renaming the entrance to the Hughes Entrance Plaza. The field was used as the first temporary morgue on May 22, 2011 after the

2011 Joplin tornado A devastating EF5-rated multiple-vortex tornado struck Joplin, Missouri on the evening of Sunday, May 22, 2011. Part of a larger late-May tornado outbreak, the tornado touched down just west of Joplin and intensified very quickly, reaching ...

destroyed much of the community.

References

{{Coord, 37.094938, -94.457075, display=title College football venues Missouri Southern Lions football American football venues in Missouri Buildings and structures in Joplin, Missouri Sports venues completed in 1975 Sports venues in Missouri