If you build it, they will skate — or something like that.
The original construction of Fuller’s Twin City Skate Park in Centralia at times feels like something out of “The Field of Dreams.”
More than 25 years ago, a well-organized group of local parents and children drove the eventual construction of Fuller’s Twin City Skate Park next to the Rotary Riverside Park. The park immediately became a fixture in the community at a time when skateboarding was the fastest growing sport in the U.S.
The Centralia skate park has once again become a focus of Lewis County community members and many youths who see it as a positive way to spend free time and support their peers.
But its restoration would not be possible if it weren’t for the initial community effort that advocated for and helped fund the local skate park.
One of the leaders of the original push for the skate park, Sandy Seeger, speaks from experience when she says it will take the support of local adults to make the park what it once was.
“It's gonna take some adults, some parents that are able,” Seeger told The Chronicle.
Around the year 2000, local adults with the support of hundreds of local youths — more than 500 at its peak, according to Seeger — and the City of Centralia led the charge to bring a skate park to the city for the first time ever.
According to Seeger, it all started when a Centralia City Council member, Dan Keahey, and a group of kids, including her own son, convened a meeting to gauge interest in a skate park. Soon after, Seeger said she helped organize the skate club at the urging of the city. It would gather parents and children and be a driving force for the creation of the park.
“Keahey pulled together a community meeting to see how much interest was there, and from there, it just kind of took off,” Seeger said. “It was huge.”
Seeger organized interested parents into three committees that would organize fundraising, manage finances and build relationships with local contractors and construction companies.
The club involved hundreds of local children who helped the adults with fundraising efforts. The youngest helped sell chocolate during holidays such as Easter to raise money. A group of kids just a bit older participated in car washes and went door-to-door providing simple services such as carrying groceries in exchange for a donation.
The oldest group helped the adults sell concrete at $50 a yard. That way, locals who wanted to donate could directly fund the concrete slab that would be necessary for the park.
“We felt that the youth needed to be involved and take some ownership of the park so that they knew that it wasn't a gift to them and they needed to give back to get it,” Seeger said.
Another parent and active member of the community to this day, Rick Conklin, was heavily involved in the effort. He said he joined up after attending the first meeting organized by Seeger.
He, like the group's founder, hoped to support the construction of the park so his sons would have a place to practice their newfound passion.
“Most of the places around had signs posted, ‘no skateboards,’ stuff like that,” Conklin said. “So from the beginning, I knew this was something that was actually needed in Centralia.”
Construction of the park began roughly two years after the founding of the skate club, according to an issue of The Chronicle dated Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2002, that details the pouring of the large concrete slab for the park. Ramp construction took place over the next year. An issue from January 2003 states ramp construction would begin soon and another from April of that year tells of “upbeat” city officials touring the first ramps that were constructed.
Progress with the park also appears to have brought on more support from the community, strengthening the local skateboarding movement. Many contributed to the park, whether it was by volunteering or giving cash donations.
Clippings from The Chronicle saved by the City of Centralia detail major donations and funding milestones, including possibly the largest one from Rob Fuller coming just after the pouring of the concrete but before construction of the ramps.
In a front page article published in November 2002, The Chronicle broke the news to many that the local grocery store chain owner and his daughter, Liz, pledged $100,000 to the park. About $50,000 would go to construction and another $50,000 over the next 10 years would go to park maintenance. The donation also officially changed the facility's original name of the Twin City Sport Court to Fuller’s Twin City Skate Park.
Fuller had long been a supporter of fledgling sports such as girls' fastpitch years earlier, but the sponsorship of the skate park was symbolic of something else as well: a change in the reputation of skaters in the community.
The article also announced: “Rob Fuller has changed his opinion of skateboarders.” He went on to refer to the young skaters as “good young people.” Seeger said that the change of opinion was no accident. It was the goal of the skate club to make the kids who used the park take ownership of it and defend it from damage or vandalism.
Another article details Centralia City Council member Carol Lee Neely during a tour of the park remarking that local skating had flipped from “a problem in the city to a way for youths to show their energy and organization.”
Seeger, during a recent phone call, remembered a time when local youth skating at the park had worked with local law enforcement to report vandalism and even block the vandals from leaving the park while police responded.
“The kids had ownership in the park from day one, and they protected the park,” Seeger said.
During that same era, the park became a center of the community. Seeger at the time operated the Skate Key Board Shop located in part of what is now the Good Health Nutrition Center in Centralia. She recalls local skaters dropping their bags off after school before going to skate or children calling their parents from her shop.
Now, more than 20 years after the park was built and many years after its peak of hosting skating competitions and being a place where local youth could gather, it has fallen into disrepair through no fault of the youth that use it.
The newest effort to restore the park, which was also prompted by a petition from local youths, is now being spearheaded by the City of Centralia.
Deputy City Manager Amy Buckler has agreed to submit an application for a Washington state Youth Athletic Facilities Grant through the Washington state Recreation and Conservation Office. The city has held public forums and worked with the original publishers of a petition on behalf of local youth to restore the park.
Many skaters who recall the glory days of the skate park and even participated in contests there now have children of their own they are teaching to skate. Many of them have shown up to show support for the new effort.
Seeger said she hopes the effort of those youths who first dedicated themselves to the park will be remembered as today's youths take an interest in its restoration.
“I would really ask that when they make those changes, don't forget the kids who built the park originally,” Seeger said.
