Friends of Beaver Creek Park make first major purchase

A group formed at the end of 2011 to help support the 10,000-acre county park south of Havre has made its first major purchase for the park, the chair of its board reported at the Hill County Park Board meeting Monday in Havre.

Friends of Beaver Creek Park Chair Ursula Brese said the group spent $1,529 to buy a pole saw and paint sprayer for the park staff.

The board approved at its last meeting providing $1,500 to buy the equipment, she said.

“Of course, it went over $1,500, but we gave it to them,” she said, adding that the group is working hard to help the park.

She said the board also discussed plans to start putting memorials at Rotary Campground, and the possibility of renaming Rotary Pond as memorial pond.

Park Board member Robbie Lucke is working on drafting a map of the area to use in planning where trees could be planted or large rocks with memorial plaques on them placed at the site.

The nonprofit group also is planning its major fundraiser, set this year for Sept. 7 at Camp Kiwanis in Beaver Creek Park, she said.

It also is working on setting up a place where people can sign up to be called as volunteers to help work on projects at the park, and on getting business cards printed and T-shirts made, Brese said.

Park Superintendent Chad Edgar said the park has been busy this season already, despite yet another year of severe flood damage.

He said representatives of Federal Emergency Management Agency have done an initial tour of the park to look at damage. The assessment will be used in deciding if a federal disaster declaration for the region is justified.

The park staff members are working on damage incurred this year, as well as continuing work and improvements in general and for the federal disaster flooding in 2010 and 2011.

The crews have been busy, including getting caught up on mowing and repairing damage to roads and campgrounds. Edgar said the crews built two new campgrounds to help make up for flood-damaged campgrounds, cleaning up trees that have fallen, working to repair roads and doing other work.

He said two new handicap-accessible outhouses have been installed, and another being donated by Railroad Pagers will be installed within a month.

He said he also is looking for a new employee — one of the members of his staff is taking another job.

Edgar also thanked the Friends for the new equipment, and said the park staff members already have been using the paint sprayer to paint the cabins at Camp Kiwanis.

“It worked real good,” he said. “It took longer to clean it up than it took to throw (the paint) down.”