Fans of high school football in our region have been waiting for Saturday night for a long time.

That’s when the 79th-annual Rudy Mumley Ohio Valley Athletic Conference All-Star Football Charity Classic will be played.

As usual, the contest will allow the top graduated seniors from Ohio to square off against their counterparts from West Virginia, with kickoff set for 7:15 p.m. in Wheeling Island Stadium.

Of course, there will be bragging rights on the line in the game, which was first played in 1940. Even more important will be the friendships that have been made during training camp sessions that have been held at Wheeling University and the experiences that have been a part of the week leading up to Saturday, including the George Strager Evening with the Stars, the Evening with the Osiris Shriners, the annual Queen of Queens Pageant and a pep rally.

For some of the players, the game will represent a final tune-up before they head to college training camps during the next few weeks. For others, it will be the final time they play in a competitive football game.

Joining the 66 football players who will be a part of the event will be more than 170 members of the OVAC All-Star Band, 19 Queen of Queens contestants and 25 cheerleaders. In all, more than 250 young men and women will be participating in the event. Plus, players, coaches, cheerleaders and queen contestants will be honored as part of the game’s annual reunion.

And while all of that is important, the game is about raising money for charity, and it’s a success on that level as well — since the OVAC took over sponsorship in 1972, more than $1 million has been donated to local charitable organizations and scholarship funds.

Saturday’s game means that the start of the high school football season is just about a month away — in fact, our award-winning high school football preview section, Prep Football 2025, will be included in the Aug. 20 editions of the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times. It’s the region’s most-anticipated football edition, and will offer complete previews of each of our local high school football teams.

High school football returns this weekend — sit back and enjoy.