Post by bermshot on Jun 3, 2006 6:00:56 GMT -5
Just opened
www.advertiserdemocrat.com/cgi-bin/a_search/class_re.cgi?search=1&head=Skate*park's*finally*ready
Skate park's finally ready
by Wm. Duke Harrington PARIS - A local skateboard park, five years in the making, is finally ready to roll. The grand opening of the 7,800 square-foot Oxford Hills Skate Park, located on Charles Street in Paris, behind the former Hancock Lumber building, is set for 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 17. "It's a beautiful park. It's absolutely gorgeous," says Dr. Mark Eastman, superintendent of SAD 17, who managed much of the construction effort. No figures have been released to show how much money was raised through contributions, grants and in-kind donations for the site. However, at a recent school board meeting, Eastman estimated that the park cost "about $100,000" to build. Talk of creating a local skateboard park began in March, 2001, following a teen/community summit held at Oxford Hill Comprehensive High School. At that meeting, more than 100 students and 50 adults gathered to discuss the needs of teens in the Oxford Hills. Soon afterward, young people began to coalesce under the leadership of students Bently Hamilton and Greg Hutchinson. This group, with help from youth mentor Jeannie Stone, Paris Police Chief David Verrier, and Norway Recreation Director Deb Partridge, among many others, convinced the town of Paris to donate an "underutilized" 16,000 square foot park on Charles Street to SAD 17, which held the money collected though various fundraising efforts. Nationally noted skate park designer Wally Hollyday was hired to lay out the site, with input from Hamilton and Hutchinson, Gould Academy skateboard coach Dave Bean and SAD 17 Special Projects Coordinator John Parsons, who handled much of the permitting process and ongoing haggling with state officials over drainage issues. Groundbreaking efforts got underway in September, 2005, with highway crews from Norway, Oxford, Paris and Waterford, along with the SAD 17 maintenance crew, donating time and equipment for excavation. Hollyday and a team from California Skate Parks then created the high-banked "flow bowls" that skaters ride in, making smooth walls and even transitions using a process known as "shotcrete," which pumps building material into the bankings under pressure. The nearest suitable machinery for that work had to be trucked up from Massachusetts. Volunteers, town public works crews and local contractors then poured the "flatwork" this past spring. A few final landscaping touches are all that remains to be done before the grand opening. The flow bowls include four interlocking pools each about seven feet deep. The park's street course includes rails, ledges, curbs and banking leading into an adjacent basketball court. Hamilton, now nearly 20, was 14 when work on the skate park began. While many of his peers went on to college, Hamilton stayed in the area, never losing focus and remaining "relentless in the process." According to Stone, Hamilton "has faithfully led his peers, passionately spoken to municipal officials, attended meetings, researched other skate park facilities, done much fundraising, personally promoted skateboard events, worked with the builders, built benches and forms for the concrete, physically worked in the trenches of the park and spoken to other youth." Now, at long last, his dream has become a reality. Even prior to the official opening, the Oxford Hills State Park - which Hamilton calls "the best skate park north of Boston" - has performed exactly as he and other young people long ago predicted. In addition to local youth, it has drawn teens from around the region. On May 13, the first event was held at the park, with area riders competing in the Spring Series, said to be the only nationally recognized skateboarding event to focus solely on high school teams. On Monday, a crowd of about 30 youngsters were hard at play, testing their skills on the park's concrete surfaces and iron rails. Since teens were reportedly jumping the fence anyway, Paris police consented to open the park gates to the public before the official grand opening. As Hamilton watched the crowd of skaters, ranging in age from about five to 25, he pointed out that the area was purposefully designed to be inviting to parents and families, with benches, landscaping, trees and, soon, a permanent porta-potty. Most of the group skating on Monday, he said, lent a hand during construction. "Probably every kid here helped," he said. "A lot of local teens and young kids came out at least one day during the building of this park. What was really neat is that a lot of older guys, in their twenties, were here to help out just because they're still around and they want to skate, too. "Those guys actually were trying to build a park when I was just five or six, so that's how long this process has really been going on here," says Hamilton. "It's way longer than me." Hamilton encourages parents to become a presence in the skate park, and hopes they will stress the need for proper safety gear. Although SAD 17 owns the land the park is built on, it is reportedly not liable for any personal injury. "It's like any playground," says Eastman. "As long as it's maintained in a safe condition, people use it at their own risk." Eastman says SAD 17 has no responsibility or financial interest in the park. No tax money has been spent on the project thus far, and plans are to maintain that status quo. Of the money raised over the years, Eastman says "about $5,000" has been set aside for ongoing maintenance of the dusk-to-dawn facility. Anyone interesting in donating to the park to help keep it in its current condition can send contributions to: Oxford Hills School District, attention: John Parsons, 1570 Main St., Suite 11, Oxford, ME 04270.
PARIS
by Wm. Duke Harrington
Thursday, May 25, 2006
front
www.maine.rr.com/06/ohsp/default.asp
It is tough being a skateboarder. Grown-ups, who never skateboarded themselves, sometimes perceive skaters a certain way and Greg Hutchinson, an Emerson College junior from Oxford Hills says that was a challenge for the people behind a multi-year effort to build a skate park in his town. “The ‘skate punk’ vision was prominent in this town,” he says.
Nevertheless, after several years and several dozen meetings and presentations and fund-raisers and grants, the people of Oxford Hills are justifiably proud of their 7000 square-foot facility. John Parsons, of the Oxford Hills School Department, which owns the land the park sits on, says a lot of people spent a lot of hours making this dream a reality.
Aroundmaine.com heard about the skate park a couple of weeks ago, and having at my disposal a fifteen year-old skateboard aficionado and skate park critic, I decided we should go look at what they have in South Paris and see how it compares with what other southern Maine towns have to offer.
My son James and his friend Calvin grabbed their boards and helmets and we headed up Route 26 to Oxford Hills a day before the grand opening celebration to see if the wild claims we’d heard about the facility were true. While we waited for John Parsons to arrive, the ledges, rails, bowls and ramps of gleaming concrete had them anxious to try.
It’s been six years from the time Oxford Hills freshmen students Greg Hutchinson and Bentley Hamilton decided that a skate park would be good for the community. Over the years they did the research, met the deadlines, and made the presentations- working through the system, overcoming objections and obstacles and finding a way to make things happen, and, as Hutchinson says, “Provide a healthy place that’s safe for the sport.”
James leaps the stepsWith childhood obesity a growing public concern, the Skate Park Committee went to meeting after meeting, trying to make their case with all of the many stakeholders involved in the process. For high-school student Hutchinson, the process led to developing some, “Amazing public speaking skills.”
About three years ago, Dave Bean joined the effort at a time the skate park project seemed to be, “At a point of impasse.” As the skating coach at Bethel’s Gould Academy, Bean says he’s been skating for forty years. He was contacted by Jeannie Stone, who he describes as, “The person of continuity on the skate park committee.”
Bean gives most of the credit for the design to Hutchinson and Hamilton. He says they just came over and told him what they were looking for. Bean says his skating experience, “Enables me to understand pretty clearly what the teenagers wanted in a park and then communicate that with people our age.”
These signs lay out the rulesThe two skaters I brought along from Portland were pleased by the park and said they wished there was something like it closer to where they live. They were particularly impressed by the concrete construction – something rare in municipal skate parks around here. A 16,000 square-foot park is currently under construction in Lewiston and set to open in August.
Bean says you can't really judge a park from a brief visit anyway, because it will take skaters several weeks to "dial in" the park, to learn how to best exploit rails and rims and rams and bowls. He says the park is designed to give skaters of all levels a challenge.
The legendary Wally Hollyday, who has designed skate parks all over the country, was brought in to refine the design. Hutchinson says the skateboard committee looked into all kinds of construction, but concrete proved to be the quietest, and easiest to maintain, and provided the most dynamic skating experience. “It makes sense to build concrete,” says Bean.
The design includes concrete bowls, rails, dips, spines, ramps and steps, all laid out so skaters, bikers, and roller-bladers can test their skills, no matter how proficient they are.
On opening day in South Paris 33 year-old skate and graffiti artist Eli Cayer of Portland was on hand to apply some of his art to the new Oxford Hills Park. Cayer, a prime mover behind the non-profit group “Mensk”, is working to bring a similar park to Portland. Cayer would like to see a concrete park built in the shadow of the Casco Bay Bridge in an old railroad underpass called the Clark Street Viaduct, but the city is also looking at other plans, including locations at Payson Park and Douglas Field. The next meeting about Portland’s skate park plans is on July 11.
Hollyday’s company offered Oxford Hills the opportunity to cut the expense significantly by allowing outside workers to do parts of the construction that didn’t require specialized skills, like excavating, flat concrete and rebar. The Hollyday company supervised volunteers. Using donated labor and materials allowed the skate committee to save 30% of the park's $180,000 price tag and made the park a real community effort. In the end the park cost under $120,000, all of which was raised through donations and grants. No public funds were tapped. “Everybody just donated,” says Bean, “Anytime something needed to be done, someone stepped in.”
Even though the park is located in South Paris, on land the town gave to the school department for that purpose, Bean and Parsons both had special praise for the support and contributions from the town of Norway, whose town crews did most of the excavations.
On June 17, the eight towns that make up the Oxford Hills School District-- Harrison, Hebron, Oxford, Otisfield, Norway, Paris, Waterford, and West Paris -- formally opened one of the best municipal skate parks certainly in Southern Maine. Dozens of people participated in one way or another to the realization of the dream that started six years ago in the minds of two Oxford Hills High School freshmen.
by Chad Gilley
aroundmaine.com
June 26, 2006 aroundmaine Planet
Hutchinson is pretty happy his town now has what he calls, "The best in-ground concrete park in New England.”
The park isn’t completely finished though. Plans call for another, larger bowl behind the current structure. That’s going to require another $80,000. Greg Hutchinson says it’s also going to require a new wave of students willing to step into the leadership positions he and Bentley Hamilton have occupied for the last six years.
The youth of the community have the opportunity to perfect their skills and they have an affirmation in concrete of their place in their towns. They also have a place to gather and share their passion for their sport and create a community of their own around it. John Parsons, who has worked in the Oxford Hills School Department for decades says, “These communities have always come out for the kids.”
Map:
maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=Charles+Street,+South+Paris,+ME
www.advertiserdemocrat.com/cgi-bin/a_search/class_re.cgi?search=1&head=Skate*park's*finally*ready
Skate park's finally ready
by Wm. Duke Harrington PARIS - A local skateboard park, five years in the making, is finally ready to roll. The grand opening of the 7,800 square-foot Oxford Hills Skate Park, located on Charles Street in Paris, behind the former Hancock Lumber building, is set for 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 17. "It's a beautiful park. It's absolutely gorgeous," says Dr. Mark Eastman, superintendent of SAD 17, who managed much of the construction effort. No figures have been released to show how much money was raised through contributions, grants and in-kind donations for the site. However, at a recent school board meeting, Eastman estimated that the park cost "about $100,000" to build. Talk of creating a local skateboard park began in March, 2001, following a teen/community summit held at Oxford Hill Comprehensive High School. At that meeting, more than 100 students and 50 adults gathered to discuss the needs of teens in the Oxford Hills. Soon afterward, young people began to coalesce under the leadership of students Bently Hamilton and Greg Hutchinson. This group, with help from youth mentor Jeannie Stone, Paris Police Chief David Verrier, and Norway Recreation Director Deb Partridge, among many others, convinced the town of Paris to donate an "underutilized" 16,000 square foot park on Charles Street to SAD 17, which held the money collected though various fundraising efforts. Nationally noted skate park designer Wally Hollyday was hired to lay out the site, with input from Hamilton and Hutchinson, Gould Academy skateboard coach Dave Bean and SAD 17 Special Projects Coordinator John Parsons, who handled much of the permitting process and ongoing haggling with state officials over drainage issues. Groundbreaking efforts got underway in September, 2005, with highway crews from Norway, Oxford, Paris and Waterford, along with the SAD 17 maintenance crew, donating time and equipment for excavation. Hollyday and a team from California Skate Parks then created the high-banked "flow bowls" that skaters ride in, making smooth walls and even transitions using a process known as "shotcrete," which pumps building material into the bankings under pressure. The nearest suitable machinery for that work had to be trucked up from Massachusetts. Volunteers, town public works crews and local contractors then poured the "flatwork" this past spring. A few final landscaping touches are all that remains to be done before the grand opening. The flow bowls include four interlocking pools each about seven feet deep. The park's street course includes rails, ledges, curbs and banking leading into an adjacent basketball court. Hamilton, now nearly 20, was 14 when work on the skate park began. While many of his peers went on to college, Hamilton stayed in the area, never losing focus and remaining "relentless in the process." According to Stone, Hamilton "has faithfully led his peers, passionately spoken to municipal officials, attended meetings, researched other skate park facilities, done much fundraising, personally promoted skateboard events, worked with the builders, built benches and forms for the concrete, physically worked in the trenches of the park and spoken to other youth." Now, at long last, his dream has become a reality. Even prior to the official opening, the Oxford Hills State Park - which Hamilton calls "the best skate park north of Boston" - has performed exactly as he and other young people long ago predicted. In addition to local youth, it has drawn teens from around the region. On May 13, the first event was held at the park, with area riders competing in the Spring Series, said to be the only nationally recognized skateboarding event to focus solely on high school teams. On Monday, a crowd of about 30 youngsters were hard at play, testing their skills on the park's concrete surfaces and iron rails. Since teens were reportedly jumping the fence anyway, Paris police consented to open the park gates to the public before the official grand opening. As Hamilton watched the crowd of skaters, ranging in age from about five to 25, he pointed out that the area was purposefully designed to be inviting to parents and families, with benches, landscaping, trees and, soon, a permanent porta-potty. Most of the group skating on Monday, he said, lent a hand during construction. "Probably every kid here helped," he said. "A lot of local teens and young kids came out at least one day during the building of this park. What was really neat is that a lot of older guys, in their twenties, were here to help out just because they're still around and they want to skate, too. "Those guys actually were trying to build a park when I was just five or six, so that's how long this process has really been going on here," says Hamilton. "It's way longer than me." Hamilton encourages parents to become a presence in the skate park, and hopes they will stress the need for proper safety gear. Although SAD 17 owns the land the park is built on, it is reportedly not liable for any personal injury. "It's like any playground," says Eastman. "As long as it's maintained in a safe condition, people use it at their own risk." Eastman says SAD 17 has no responsibility or financial interest in the park. No tax money has been spent on the project thus far, and plans are to maintain that status quo. Of the money raised over the years, Eastman says "about $5,000" has been set aside for ongoing maintenance of the dusk-to-dawn facility. Anyone interesting in donating to the park to help keep it in its current condition can send contributions to: Oxford Hills School District, attention: John Parsons, 1570 Main St., Suite 11, Oxford, ME 04270.
PARIS
by Wm. Duke Harrington
Thursday, May 25, 2006
front
www.maine.rr.com/06/ohsp/default.asp
It is tough being a skateboarder. Grown-ups, who never skateboarded themselves, sometimes perceive skaters a certain way and Greg Hutchinson, an Emerson College junior from Oxford Hills says that was a challenge for the people behind a multi-year effort to build a skate park in his town. “The ‘skate punk’ vision was prominent in this town,” he says.
Nevertheless, after several years and several dozen meetings and presentations and fund-raisers and grants, the people of Oxford Hills are justifiably proud of their 7000 square-foot facility. John Parsons, of the Oxford Hills School Department, which owns the land the park sits on, says a lot of people spent a lot of hours making this dream a reality.
Aroundmaine.com heard about the skate park a couple of weeks ago, and having at my disposal a fifteen year-old skateboard aficionado and skate park critic, I decided we should go look at what they have in South Paris and see how it compares with what other southern Maine towns have to offer.
My son James and his friend Calvin grabbed their boards and helmets and we headed up Route 26 to Oxford Hills a day before the grand opening celebration to see if the wild claims we’d heard about the facility were true. While we waited for John Parsons to arrive, the ledges, rails, bowls and ramps of gleaming concrete had them anxious to try.
It’s been six years from the time Oxford Hills freshmen students Greg Hutchinson and Bentley Hamilton decided that a skate park would be good for the community. Over the years they did the research, met the deadlines, and made the presentations- working through the system, overcoming objections and obstacles and finding a way to make things happen, and, as Hutchinson says, “Provide a healthy place that’s safe for the sport.”
James leaps the stepsWith childhood obesity a growing public concern, the Skate Park Committee went to meeting after meeting, trying to make their case with all of the many stakeholders involved in the process. For high-school student Hutchinson, the process led to developing some, “Amazing public speaking skills.”
About three years ago, Dave Bean joined the effort at a time the skate park project seemed to be, “At a point of impasse.” As the skating coach at Bethel’s Gould Academy, Bean says he’s been skating for forty years. He was contacted by Jeannie Stone, who he describes as, “The person of continuity on the skate park committee.”
Bean gives most of the credit for the design to Hutchinson and Hamilton. He says they just came over and told him what they were looking for. Bean says his skating experience, “Enables me to understand pretty clearly what the teenagers wanted in a park and then communicate that with people our age.”
These signs lay out the rulesThe two skaters I brought along from Portland were pleased by the park and said they wished there was something like it closer to where they live. They were particularly impressed by the concrete construction – something rare in municipal skate parks around here. A 16,000 square-foot park is currently under construction in Lewiston and set to open in August.
Bean says you can't really judge a park from a brief visit anyway, because it will take skaters several weeks to "dial in" the park, to learn how to best exploit rails and rims and rams and bowls. He says the park is designed to give skaters of all levels a challenge.
The legendary Wally Hollyday, who has designed skate parks all over the country, was brought in to refine the design. Hutchinson says the skateboard committee looked into all kinds of construction, but concrete proved to be the quietest, and easiest to maintain, and provided the most dynamic skating experience. “It makes sense to build concrete,” says Bean.
The design includes concrete bowls, rails, dips, spines, ramps and steps, all laid out so skaters, bikers, and roller-bladers can test their skills, no matter how proficient they are.
On opening day in South Paris 33 year-old skate and graffiti artist Eli Cayer of Portland was on hand to apply some of his art to the new Oxford Hills Park. Cayer, a prime mover behind the non-profit group “Mensk”, is working to bring a similar park to Portland. Cayer would like to see a concrete park built in the shadow of the Casco Bay Bridge in an old railroad underpass called the Clark Street Viaduct, but the city is also looking at other plans, including locations at Payson Park and Douglas Field. The next meeting about Portland’s skate park plans is on July 11.
Hollyday’s company offered Oxford Hills the opportunity to cut the expense significantly by allowing outside workers to do parts of the construction that didn’t require specialized skills, like excavating, flat concrete and rebar. The Hollyday company supervised volunteers. Using donated labor and materials allowed the skate committee to save 30% of the park's $180,000 price tag and made the park a real community effort. In the end the park cost under $120,000, all of which was raised through donations and grants. No public funds were tapped. “Everybody just donated,” says Bean, “Anytime something needed to be done, someone stepped in.”
Even though the park is located in South Paris, on land the town gave to the school department for that purpose, Bean and Parsons both had special praise for the support and contributions from the town of Norway, whose town crews did most of the excavations.
On June 17, the eight towns that make up the Oxford Hills School District-- Harrison, Hebron, Oxford, Otisfield, Norway, Paris, Waterford, and West Paris -- formally opened one of the best municipal skate parks certainly in Southern Maine. Dozens of people participated in one way or another to the realization of the dream that started six years ago in the minds of two Oxford Hills High School freshmen.
by Chad Gilley
aroundmaine.com
June 26, 2006 aroundmaine Planet
Hutchinson is pretty happy his town now has what he calls, "The best in-ground concrete park in New England.”
The park isn’t completely finished though. Plans call for another, larger bowl behind the current structure. That’s going to require another $80,000. Greg Hutchinson says it’s also going to require a new wave of students willing to step into the leadership positions he and Bentley Hamilton have occupied for the last six years.
The youth of the community have the opportunity to perfect their skills and they have an affirmation in concrete of their place in their towns. They also have a place to gather and share their passion for their sport and create a community of their own around it. John Parsons, who has worked in the Oxford Hills School Department for decades says, “These communities have always come out for the kids.”
Map:
maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=Charles+Street,+South+Paris,+ME