1974-09-04-sc-p23-reardan-recreation-facilities

September 04, 1974 Spokane Daily Chronicle Page 23:

[photo]

Shown are the new lighted football field with running track at left and the tennis courts at Reardan High School, Both are part of a community project for large recreation center.

Reardan Works to Install Recreation Facilities

By SUE ENGLISH

Reardan’s pride is showing again.

But this time it is not on the basketball court, where the town is well known for producing State B championship teams for nearly a decade. It is. something more tangible than marks in a record book. Nearly a year and one-half ago, the little farming community nestled in the fields west of Spokane decided it needed a recreational center.

Something like what they wanted to do had never been done in a town of that size, as far as those involved knew. But that didn’t stop the citizens of Reardan.

The combined perserverance, a little pride and a lot of hard work and now they are well on their way to having a new community recreation center.

It lies behind the school buildings, bordered by fields and the town cemetery and consists of a lighted football field; two softball fields, one lighted; a multipurpose tennis slab which includes five lighted tennis courts, volleyball, badminton and basketball courts; a new eight-lane running track; a baseball diamond; horse shoe pits and new concrete bleachers.

“Small communities don't have the expertise to put through these things but we are trying with a lot of hard work,’ Joe B. Johnson, superintendent of Reardan School District, commented.

“I tried to keep track of how many hours the people of this community put in on this project, but I ran out of paper,” he said,

All of the work shows as the town, with the help of military equipment, moved over 70,000 cubic yards of dirt, literally moved their football field by relocating the sod, built fences, planted grass and hauled the new surface for the track in farm trucks from some mines up north were the material they obtained free.

But it takes more than a lot of hard work to put together something of this magnitude so the community had to seek funding from sources other than the community.

"We obtained $78,000 in government funding which means that we need $55,000 in community funding," explained Johnson.

To help with this effort, the Reardan Community Recreation Committee is sponsoring a fund-raising dinner Sept. 19 at which pledges will be taken, Johnson said they have hopes of raising about $3,000 at this event to add to the $4,500 already raised as they climb toward their goal little by little.

And, in addition to raising the remainder of the needed funds, the facility is far from complete. The tractors still can be heard clear to the borders of the small town, rearranging the horseshoe pits while some of the lights still are being installed.

It’s a good thing, too, that the baseball season will not begin this fall because the weeds are bigger than the grass right now on the base- ball field-to-be.

But despite all that remains to be completed, Johnson excitedly remarked that “we will open our football season this fall with a game under the lights, even though we don’t have any bleachers up to seat fans yet."

Hopefully, by next spring, the Reardan Indians will be competing in their first home track meet ever.

Johnson stressed that this is more than a school facility, it is truly a community recreational center.

The citizens of Reardan should be proud of it. They have planned it big enough to hold nearly the entire community at once.