GAS — Pat Laver is looking for about $4,500 to put a piece of playground equipment in Walter and Helen Fees Park at the west edge of Gas.
“We have $5,500 and we need $10,000,” she said Tuesday evening at the Gas Council meeting.
More than $15,000 already has been spent on play structures for the park, including a swinging bridge and basketball goals. Members of the Fees Park Committee in addition to Laver are Adelina and Lisa Holloway, Shirley Robertson, Jeanne McKarnin, Jean Andrews and Lillian Steele.
When the play structure is put in place, the fundraisers will be shelved, at least for the immediate future. “We’ve been working on the park for quite a while and we’re ready for some time off,” Laver said.
Fundraisers for this spring and summer haven’t been scheduled, but she talked about golf and softball tournaments, maybe some sales. Also, she encouraged spontaneous donations. Checks may be sent to the Fees Park Fund, Bank of Gas, P.O. Box 158, Gas, KS 66742.
THE JOURNEY to turn a vacant tract overgrown with grass into the upscale park has been exciting and fulfilling for many in the community of 550.
“You know,” Laver said, “any time we’ve done anything at the park, all we’ve had to do was put out the word. People have come to help and there always have been more than enough.”
The city has been involved, in large measure through attraction of a $21,544 Kansas Department of Health and Environment grant, matched locally dollar-for-dollar, to build a quarter-mile-long walking track. It is made of recycled vehicle tires, which gives it resiliency that’s kind to walkers’ feet.
People from Iola and other area towns, regularly stroll the track.
Kids take advantage of the playground equipment and basketball goals, often while their parents play golf at the Allen County Country Club, just to the west.
“The park is a popular place,” said Rhonda Hill, Gas city clerk. “Every time you go by there’s someone there, usually quite a few people.”
LAVER and many other Gas residents have had a role in the park from the very start.
The community project evolved from conversations with Jean Park, daughter of Helen and Walter Fees, who lives in Ottawa. The Feeses owned the land where the park is situated and lived just across U.S. 54 to the south. The elder Feeses are deceased, and Park and other relatives were eager to help Gas create the park that bears their names.
“There was a stipulation,” said Mayor Darrell Catron. “The land is ours as long as it is used for a park. If it closes, the land goes back to the Fees family.”
Efforts to develop the park started in 2002 and it was dedicated in 2005, with 25 Fees descendants on hand.
“When you talk about the park and how it got to the point where it is today, you have to remember Ron Davis, too,” Catron said. “He worked for the city part time — his regular job was with the Natural Resources Conservation Service — and he had a lot to do with the park being what it is today. It was a favorite of his.”
Davis is deceased.
