Humboldt gets clubhouse

HUMBOLDT — About three years ago the Humboldt Men’s Golf Association was on the verge of imploding. Membership had dwindled to half a dozen.
Looking at a bleak future, younger men were encouraged to join and steadily membership was rebuilt. Today it stands at 45 and when the bell rings to convene league play on Wednesday evenings, 35 or more answer.
As with most organizations, “if you don’t have young people involved” there is danger of hearing the death knell, said Nobby Davis, Humboldt’s mayor and one of several always willing to help with community projects.
To help secure membership, Davis said the idea of a clubhouse soon followed.
It got started last summer when Steve (Johnson) and I were sitting in a boat on Grand Lake,” Davis said. “We got to talking about it (clubhouse) and thought maybe we could move in a double-wide or one of those construction trailers.”
Joe Works, owner of B&W Trailer Hitches, had construction going on and the two men approached him, thinking he might know of a construction trailer.
Not so quick, was Works’ response.
If a trailer were refitted, it would be above ground. A structure at ground level would be better, Works said, eliminating the need for steps.
When word got around, several responded and in a matter of days a few thousand dollars were pledged to get the project started.
“Everyone stepped up,” Davis rhapsodized. “We all thought it was good to put something back into the community.”
While the 26-by-40-foot building, with a roof-covered 20-foot-long patio, would have cost a pretty penny, Works gave a helping hand.
“Joe said he had some scrap metal and he could have people at the plant help out,” Davis said.
“Help out” transformed itself quickly into a concrete pad, walls and roof over trusses provided by contractor Ryan Whitworth.
Then, community folks — many associated with the course, but others as well — descended on the building’s shell to finish out the interior, which includes handicap-accessible restrooms, a bar and stools, cabinets and appliances.

THE STRUCTURE is a clubhouse first, but within a few months when all is complete it will be available to the community for any number of functions, public and private.
“We want it to be used” and for people in the community to develop ownership, Davis said.
“We’ve done it right, we haven’t cut any corners,” Johnson added.
The core group is much larger than Davis, Johnson and the contributions of Works and B&W and Whitworth.
Others who have had integral roles include Jeremy Bulk, Larry and Kathy Johnson, Ron and Sherry Herder, PSI Insurance, Smithco, Pete’s (convenience store), Craig and Jennie Newman, Fred Lassman, Barfoot Lumber, Bob Johnson, Don Walburn, and Humboldt Industries.
“We may be leaving out a few,” cautioned Johnson. “There have been so many help out.”
To advantage of the golf course, USD 258 donated artificial turf left over from its sports complex construction at the east edge of town to improve most of the greens.

SO, WHEN 2015 dawned on Thursday yet another community improvement was in Humboldt’s bulging inventory.
Just across Franklin Street are relatively new elderly housing and a public fishing pond stocked a year ago by the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Elsewhere in town are a number of other community jewels.
Directly east of the clubhouse is a small pond fed water through a clever piping system from a larger impoundment that long as been a feature of the golf course.
“You know, when the club house is finished, new grass is up and green and with the pond it’s going to look really nice,” Davis said.
Meanwhile somewhere in Humboldt mental gears will be turning and another community project, to enhance daily life for its residents, will crop up. Without doubt in answer will be another group of folks — likely many of the same ones — who will pitch in “for the good of the community.”