Those in attendance at last Friday night’s football game at Roughrider Stadium appeared to have been “caught off guard’ when there was no public prayer offered during pre-game activities. Several fans in attendance and others have taken to social media outlets since to express their shock and displeasure at the decision made by C-I-S-D administration.  District Superintendent Dr. James Hockenberry told Center Broadcasting Monday that he was advised by the school district’s attorney recently to halt public prayer over the public address system at football games, or the school could put itself at risk of future legal issues.  Dr. Hockenberry said he advised the public address announcer, prior to Friday’s game, to not ask for a moment of silence, which has typically led into prayer at Roughrider games. He added there was nothing wrong with asking for silence before the start of a game, but public prayer over the sound system at sporting events, primarily home football games was not to be allowed. Dr. Hockenberry said prior laws and policy, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions prompted the action.  He said he’s had a number of phone calls since Friday night, and offered up an apology to those affected, saying he was doing only what he thought was right in protecting the Center ISD. After meeting with school board president, Dr. Dixon Golden, Dr. Hockenberry says he believes the school district has come up with a method of “student expression”, or a time where a chosen student will be able to conduct prayer or other open communications publicly, without being obscene over the P-A system at Roughrider home football games. He said details of the “student expression” will be worked out during the board’s meeting Thursday night.  He said it’s up to each school district individually to allow or not allow prayer at football games. When asked if prayer would be allowed at the Roughriders’ game Friday night in Lindale, Dr. Hockenberry said, that would be left up to the Lindale ISD, and the policy they have, since Center was playing at their stadium.