Preparing to plant the seed
<p>Cory Ovitt, president of the Wildhorse Sports Association, readies one of the baseball fields for the next step in the process. Next weekend, the field will be seeded - bringing the project one step closer to completion.</p>
PLAINS - Work on the Wild Horse Sports Association sports complex continued to progress on Saturday as members of the group and volunteers gathered at the site to prepare the baseball fields to be seeded next weekend. President Cory Ovitt was busy dragging equipment behind an all-terrain-vehicle to break up the ground for the next stage of development.
According to Ovitt, the WSA was formed by members of the local community to develop a sports facility for youth activities and general use by the public. When the land became available from the county, the WSA began raising money over the last two years to build the complex that includes a proposal for three baseball fields, a soccer field, concession stands, restrooms and a walking and bike trail.
“We thought the community could use a nice park area,” said Ovitt. “Before we were using the high school fields and with their activities we were sometimes interfering with each other.”
As Ovitt continued to break up the ground preparing the field for seeding, WSA board member Randy Garrison was working on a tractor on the adjacent field. Garrison was attempting to start the heavy equipment to get the other field ready for sod. Garrison said the two fields would be prepped for their new surfaces by next weekend.
“Right now we are breaking up the ground, getting it loosened up before we seed it,” said Garrison. “The first field will be ready to seed and the second one will be sodded and ready to go by next spring.”
Garrison said because of recent drought conditions in the area, the fields needed to be watered before they could turn the soil over. The next step will involve leveling the ground before the seed and sod can be applied. After that, the new surface will be laid down and allowed to grow for the upcoming seasons.
According to Garrison the project was a creative land management effort to take advantage of space that was previously sitting vacant and provide the community with a multi-faceted resource that goes beyond baseball fields.
“We are going to be able to utilize this property for a lot of other things,” said Garrison. “The Plains High School drivers education program will be able to use the old runway. The police department and ambulances can come out here to practice. The whole idea was to make it usable to as many people in the community as possible.”
Future amenities in the proposal include developing camping facilities, locker rooms and park areas for general public recreation. The project is currently in phase one which primarily concerns the baseball fields. Phase two will start next year and include construction of two more baseball fields and the soccer field. Phase three will start the following year.
“Everything should be completed in two to three years,” said Garrison.
Garrison and Ovitt said the project was in the early stages but was progressing faster than they initially anticipated.
“The whole project is going to take a few years but this is a good start. We didn’t think we would be this far along at this point,” said Ovitt. “We feel like every small community should have something like this.”