A WALK IN THE PARK: Local group makes improvements to Gainesville park and track, builds additional walking trails
Last week members of the Ozark County Wellness Committee accepted a $25,000 donation from the Ozark County Community Foundation. From left, committee members Annie Kimbrough, Paula Rose and Karen Brantingham said the funds will be used to help build a multipurpose trail throughout a Gainesville School-owned wooded area near the school’s track that will connect to existing walking areas to create a longer continuous trail system. The final trail will use the 1/3-mile driveway at Gainesville’s Hoerman Memorial Park, the 1/4-mile track loop at Benton Breeding Stadium and two newly created chat-covered trails that connect the park and the track. The committee members say they hope the trails can be used by both the community and the school’s cross country team to train and maybe host cross country meets. Ozark County Community Foundation board member Mike Breeding, far right, and board president Kerrie Zubrod, second from right, said the board is always looking for projects that will benefit the community as a whole, and “this definitely does that,” Zubrod said.
Above: The Ozark County Wellness Committee spent its first $3,000 grant to up-date and restore the basketball courts that sit between the Hoerman Memorial Park and Benton Breeding Stadium on the Gainesville School campus. The project included the installation of two new basketball goals, a heavy-duty trash receptacle and (below) two picnic tables sitting near the court for spectators. The group also filled cracks and resurfaced the asphalt basketball court.
Tennis courts are next Another project the group will take on in the spring involves renovating the tennis courts, which have fallen into bad disrepair over the years. Committee member Karen Brantingham told the Times the project will include filling cracks and resurfacing the court. The committee then plans to redo the area to include one full-size tennis court and two courts for pickleball, a sport that combines elements of badminton, ping pong (also known as table tennis) and traditional tennis. Pickleball courts are half the size of tennis courts.
Creating trails Left: One connector trail begins on the west side of the courts and runs from the park’s driveway, behind the bathrooms and ends at a wooded area near the track that was once used for the school’s fall festival spook trail. A new $25,000 grant will fund a continuation of this trail into the wooded spook trail area, clearing the trail into an area behind the school’s greenhouse, organizers say. It is unclear how long the final trail will be, but the Ozark County Wellness Committee hopes it will be long enough for the cross country team to use, even if it has to loop twice to reach the typical 3.1-mile trail.
The Hoerman Memorial Park and Benton Breeding Stadium and track near the Gainesville Elementary School are getting a facelift – in a big way.
Thanks to the efforts of the Ozark County Wellness Project and several grant programs, the basketball court has been repaired and resurfaced, new basketball goals, picnic tables and trash cans have been installed and two chat-rock-lined connector trails have been built, joining the existing 1/3-mile park driveway to the existing 1/4-mile walking track, allowing those who use the two areas to have one continuous longer path.
Armed with a new $25,000 grant and the likelihood of even more grant funds in the near future, the wellness committee is now tackling a new set of projects in the area. One connector trail that was recently built runs from the park driveway behind the bathrooms into an area near the track that was once used for a spook trail during the school’s fall festival. That trail now ends at the wood line.
The new grant funds will provide money to continue that trail into the wooded area that runs alongside the track and weight room and behind the school’s greenhouse. The group also plans to install signage on the trail, new light poles equipped with LED lights, possibly with a timer-function to reduce electricity usage, and renovate the run-down tennis courts to include one new court and two new pickleball courts.
The start in 2018
The Ozark County Wellness Committee was formed in 2018 after the Ozark County Health Department was chosen as one of 12 organizations selected from around the state to participate in Building Communities for Better Health, a government-funded program managed through the Centers for Disease Control.
OCHD’s Suzie Green and Brenda Hambelton head up the program, which formed the Ozark County Wellness Committee, a coalition of community members that seek to increase access to physical activity, nutrition and to help reduce tobacco use.
The group now has 15-20 committee members who range in age, occupation and affiliation.
“We wanted a good group that spanned over a wide group of the county,” committee member Karen Brantingham told the Times. “That way we could really brainstorm what would be the most beneficial for everyone.”
‘On everyone’s wish list’
The group jumped in the first year and did a lot of assessment to see what community members wanted and needed, and how the group could help meet those needs.
“We did all kinds of surveys and different stuff. It was a lot of paperwork in the early stages. This really has been a long time coming,” said committee member Paula Rose.
“We kind of did a wish list of what we wanted to do,” Brantingham said. “And really, at the top of everyone’s list was a walking trail – and just park improvements in general.”
When the group was awarded its first $3,000 grant from the Building Communities for Better Health program last year, it opted to take on the basketball court.
“One [basketball] goal was completely down, and the other one was hanging. The court had all these deep cracks, and it was just in pretty bad shape,” Brantingham said. “So we took our first money and we resurfaced that, got new goals, painted, cleaned up all the stuff and put these little park benches out here.”
Brantingham said the grant was used to purchase the materials, and Gainesville ag class constructed the tables.
“With only getting $3,000 here and $3,000 there, the money goes pretty fast when you’re doing improvements like this, and you have to use it usually within the year.”
“Then we got another $3,000,” Brantingham said, referring to a second round of funding through the Building Communities for Better Health grant program. “So that’s when we started kind of mapping out a trail.”
The group members said they thought the most beneficial trails that could be built within the $3,000 budget were two paths that connected the existing 1/3-mile park driveway to the existing 1/4-mile track.
“Because then you can utilize the [park’s] drive and keep walking on the trail to come up to the track,” Brantingham said.
They built the two connecting paths, lined them with chat rock, and now are planning to line the paths with timbers.
“They’re up with Jon Wilson’s ag class now. They’re going to drill holes on them, and then they’re going to bring them down here and take them into the ground for us.”
A big opportunity
“When we got that done, we thought, ‘Hey, we just really want to go even bigger.’ So then we’re thinking the spook-walk trail, and the school owns all that,” Brantingham said.
The group worked to put together an application for a grant from the Ozark County Community Foundation, an affiliate of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, asking for between $25,000 and $30,000 to complete the trail. The OCCF board members responded enthusiastically about the application and the possibility of the trail extension and approved $25,000 in funding.
“We had a certain amount of money that we needed to grant out this year, and we were just kind of waiting for the right project to come along,” Zubrod said. “And this is definitely it.”
The group members were astonished by the grant and excited that their dreams were coming together. They spoke with Gaines-ville School officials about using school-owned land that runs alongside the west side of the track, weight room and greenhouse to develop an even longer extended portion of the trail that will weave through the trees. Gainesville superintendent Justin Gilmore said school officials were excited about the possibility and on board to help with the project.
“The district is very excited about the initiative the health coalition has taken to help make improvements to the park. A walking path/cross country trail will benefit our community and student athletes,” Gilmore told the Times. “The collaboration and cooperation from all involved to get this project moving makes us all proud to be Bulldogs! Thank you to everyone that has made this possible.”
The new trail
“We are ready to go on that part of the project as soon as that gets marked for us,” Brantingham said, adding that Matt Wade, with Ozark Country Land Surveying, is expected to survey the property soon. “Then we’re going to take a small bulldozer and run the trail all through there.”
The project has been able to achieve even more than possible, because of the committee members’ efforts and the fact that a lot of the work has been donated by local residents.
“The trail is going to be about 10 feet wide. The reason we wanted to do that is so the cross country team could utilize it, and maybe we could host some cross country meets. Not that it’ll be 3.1 miles, but they could loop it a couple times and make it work or use part of the campus roadway to complete the full distance,” Brantingham said.
The group says they are also excited about putting visible and interesting signage throughout the area to tell those who are walking, running or biking on the trail where it goes and how far they’ve gone.
The school district has agreed to maintain the trail, mowing it and also taking care of the bathrooms, which will still be closed and winterized through the coming months but opened when the weather warms in the spring.
Future plans
The group is seeking other grant opportunities to help fund the renovations, and there are two funding programs that are likely to award some additional funds in the coming months.
“The next thing is the tennis court,” Rose said. “You know we’ll get this all dolled up, and we’ll have the walking trail; then you have this big eyesore right here in the middle.”
“We got some bids for redoing it. They said they can start on that in the spring,” Brantingham said. “So we’re on the schedule for late April or early May, I believe. We’re planning on filling the cracks, resurfacing it and then putting in one tennis court and two pickleball courts. We’re hoping to raise a little more money by then, so we can make that happen.”
Two other improvements that are on the wish list include additional lighting, using brighter LED bulbs and putting up cameras to reduce the vandalism that seems to occur at the park and in the bathrooms there each year.
“We need to get all these lights repaired around the courts,” Brantingham said. “And we were talking about adding another light pole on the one side that isn’t lit up now. There’s already one on the other side. We’d also like to replace the bulbs to be brighter.”
Rose said they like the idea of putting the lighting on a timer system that automatically turns it off after a set amount of time so park users wouldn’t have to remember to turn the lights off.
Donations accepted
The Ozark County Wellness Committee is currently accepting donations to help fund continuing improvements to the park. To help, make checks payable to Ozark County Wellness Committee and mail to Ozark County Health Department, P.O. Box 180, Gainesville, MO 65655, or call the OCHD at 417-679-3334 to arrange donation details.