What Goes Around... Comes Around

WAI T SBURG - The conversation didn't last long.

Ross Hamann recalls how he was helping a Cycle Oregon official in the food line under one of the giant tents set up near the Cardinals football field when some 2,500 cyclists and support staff passed through town late last summer.

The president of the WP booster club was passing out plates and silverware when the Cycle Oregon official pointed to the sports storage shack right outside the tent and asked what it was.

It's worth describing the shack to explain why it drew attention.

The larger wooden building with the blistering white paint is the old Whiskey Creek School House moved to the ball fields in 1931. The metal lean-to was added later and remains open to the weather. The two small structures add up to a patchedtogether facility with aging bathrooms and nowhere near the space to accommodate all the sports equipment. Blocking sleds and other items are spread around its exterior like driftwood on a sandbar.

It has long been the intention of the Waitsburg sports community to replace the sports shack, so Hamann slipped that into the fleeting conversation, and the official immediately suggested he apply for a community grant from Cycle Oregon. "That's sounds perfect for our grants program," he remembers the official saying.

Half a year later, Hamann is holding a check in his hands for $5,000 to help build a new sports storage facility for the ball fields, which is part of a bigger blueprint for a press box building behind the football field's bleachers.

The big check is a grant from the Oregon Community Foundation, where Cycle Oregon has a donor-advised fund from which the cycling organization makes grants to projects in communities on its annual weeklong route.

It's the second of two grants disbursed to Waitsburg projects as a result of the town's three-day hosting of the international cycling tour. The other $5,000 check is in the hands of Mayor Walt Gobel, who received it on behalf of the city for a proposed Main Street beautification project.

With that money, the city hopes to install a permanent watering system for the sidewalk planters and add light pole sprinklers for hanging baskets. Under the plan, the city would also buy new banners and alternate them with the hanging baskets on each pole downtown.

"I'm excited we got it," Gobel said about the city's gift from Cycle Oregon.

It speaks well of "the community's willingness to get involved (in Cycle Oregon) and make sure these folks had a good time while they were here. It paid off in spades."

Gobel said local co-organizers Deanne Johnson and deputy city clerk Kelly Steinhoff, both tirelessly active during the event, spearheaded the city's grant request.

Each year, Cycle Oregon disburses about $100,000 in grant money to projects in communities "where we ride," according to its website. "Cycle Oregon doesn't just expose riders to a richly diverse group of communities. It also provides muchneeded financial support to those communities."

The grant announcement letter to Linda Henze, the booster club's treasurer, says the grant's purpose is "for improvements to community athletic fields."

Needless to say booster club officials are ecstatic.

"This grant really kick starts the project," said Hamann, who had expected to receive no more than $1,500 from his club's grant request. "It gets us on the road to meet the financial needs of the project."

That "project" calls for a building 22 feet high, 11.5 feet deep and 38 feet long with a big equipment shed on the ground floor and two-deep seating for game announcers, score keepers, coaches and media. It will have a cat walk looking out over the junior high school baseball diamond. There will be room for 28. The current scorekeepers' booth can fit two, barely.

Although an exact budget has yet to be formulated, Hamann estimates the whole press box project will cost about $25,000. It's part of a long- term sports field development plan created four years ago to upgrade all ball field facilities and may eventually include the creation of a proper field house with bathrooms, concession stands and meeting rooms.

The long-term plan was put on hold because of the poor economy, but it's designed in "bite-sized" pieces, so with the Cycle Oregon grant, the sports community can start chewing on the press box portion of it, Hamann said.

Booster officials and sports coaches are expected to meet Sunday afternoon to discuss the press box/storage building in more detail.