Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
A grand opening for the Palouse Skatepark Saturday will be June 2 in Palouse.
After six years of fundraising and construction, the opening ceremony will be at 9 a.m., followed by a “learn to skateboard, skate and use the park” clinic until 12 p.m.
At the town’s noon whistle, the park, at the corner of East Whitman and Beach Street, will open to skateboarders, skaters and scooter-users.
Saturday’s event will recognize the project’s many donors, along with volunteers and friends of the Palouse Skatepark and Tony Kettel Skate Gardens – a landscaped area above the concrete skating area.
Tours will also be given Saturday for the Gardens.
Palouse farmer Aaron Flansburg led the effort to build a skate park in Palouse, re-launching it in 2012 after some initial work 10 years before when he was a college student.
Volunteers completed the park’s final concrete pours in the past two weeks, after waiting for better weather.
Details followed with the placement of signs and garbage cans.
“It’s a pretty original park. I’m really pleased with the way it’s turning out,” said Flansburg. “There’s some kids who have been excited about this for a long time, and they’re growing up now.”
The park’s total cost is $67,000, which includes $52,000 in materials, paid labor and equipment rentals for building the bowl.
In 2016, the skate park committee got a $15,000 grant from the Tony Hawk Foundation, which marked the last stage of funding. Since the start, the skating area’s final design came together from input by volunteers – looking at sketches, tracing with a stick in the dirt and standing and looking over the rectangular plot just behind Palouse Community Center.
“A lot of the final design was decided on site,” said Flansburg. “A step at a time, a feature at a time.”
All told, the effort to build it encompassed more than 7,500 volunteer hours – which includes fundraising, building and meetings.
“It doesn’t include Nicole (Flansburg), which is easily another thousand,” Flansburg said of his wife, who has worked on the skate park as well as the Skate Gardens.
Large fundraising projects have included selling wood-fired pizzas and five years of working Haunted Palouse in the fall.
Following the June 2 grand opening, a forthcoming phase of the Gardens will include a staircase from street-level.
“There’s not a great connection between the skate park and the garden as it is now,” Flansburg said.
Also yet to come are picnic tables and a permanent barbecue grill.
What was the biggest surprise along the way?
“Where the support came from,” said Flansburg. “It was really neat to see people from outside Palouse come in to work on the project.”
The park’s posted terms of use will state it is a use-at-your-own-risk facility open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Saturday’s opening will be concurrent with the annual Palouse Hot Rod Gathering, which runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Those interested in participating in the morning skateboarding clinic are encouraged to have pads and helmets.
“Skateboards are a tricky thing to stand on when you’re trying to learn,” Flansburg said.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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