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Playground gets facelift

City of Claremont uses grant money for park upgrades.

Dee Henry | Hickory Daily Record

Claremont Public Information Officer Henry Helton discusses the positive-rule sign posted at the park.

By Dee Henry | Hickory Daily Record

Published: May 31, 2009

CLAREMONT - When officials here allowed a Girl Scout troop to question people at the municipal park, they got a surprise.

"This park is used more than we thought," said Henry Helton, public information officer for Claremont.

They used part of a $127,000 grant through the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation to put a timer switch on the resurfaced tennis courts and got another surprise.

"We noticed a $200 a month savings on our electric bill," Helton said. "Those lights coming on at 7:30 at night and staying on until 11 o'clock was a waste of energy."

The new timer allows players 90 minutes of light. When five minutes are left, a warning light comes on and players can reset the timer if they want to play longer.

Resurfacing the tennis courts, new nets and improvements to the lights, including the timer, cost the town $9,700.

The town has used the grant money — a 50/50 grant through the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund (PARTF) — for making a number of improvements to the park. The town still has $7,000 left.

One improvement is a national recognition of Memorial Day and the soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

An elm tree, a "Liberty Tree" from the Elm Research Institute in Keene, N.H., was planted at the entrance to the park, beside Claremont Elementary School on May 20.

The tree makes Claremont a Liberty Tree Memorial town, one of more than 300 such distinguished towns across the country.

Other improvements are evident throughout the park. One change is at the park entrance, where a new rule sign has been put up. The walking trail also is completely paved and will be marked so walkers and runners can know the distance they cover.

The new markers will show where a person would have walked or run a quarter, half or one mile.
The committee working on the park discovered the old Pepsi plant was in the center of the park.

"It will be noted by a World War II Pepsi sign on one side and one from 1915 on the other," Helton said.

One of the park attractions that hasn't needed any improvement is a natural spring near a small amphitheater in the center of the park. The stream has been kept clean by Eagle Scouts working on a badge, but Helton said the options for Scouting groups are numerous.

"There are a lot of things Eagles can do. In the past, they've cleaned the stream, made signs to identify the trees in the park," he said. "We could come up with lots of things for them to do."

In fact, a Girl Scout troop approached city officials a few years ago, wanting to purchase playground equipment. Helton said the group didn't realize what an expense they could run into doing that, so the city allowed the Girl Scouts to conduct a survey of park visitors to gauge what they would like to see in the park. That was the survey that brought the number of visitors to the town's attention.

The Scouts did buy new equipment for the park and grant money went to purchase such items as a one-person merry-go-round, slides with a protective tunnel to use in returning to the slide and equipment specially sized allowing wheelchairs to travel between posts and items to be used by special children.

With the improvement almost complete, the only problem the city has is spending the extra $7,000.

Helton said the town might have to file for a six-month extension to spend the money.

Helton said the park was built in 1986, but no one had really taken an interest in it until the past three years when the Parks and Recreation department requested and the council approved the application for the trust fund money.