News you can use
News you can use
Rock star will be at Hays grand opening Saturday
Jake Schwartz of Evergreen Skateparks works Wednesday at the Havre Skate Park to construct a new ramp funded by Pearl Jam bass player and Big Sandy native Jeff Ament. Evergeen also constructed an Ament-funded skatepark near Hays-Lodgepole High School, with a grand opening attended by Ament set for Saturday at the park.
Chris Hogan and Richie Conlin of Evergreen Skateparks work on a ramp Wednesday at Havre Skatepark.
Pearl Jam bass guitarist Jeff Ament will be in Hays Saturday for a ribbon cutting ceremony for a skate park that he funded.
The ribbon cutting will take place at 11:30 a.m Saturday at the Hays-Lodge Pole High School.
Loretta Kirkaldie, a grant writer for Fort Belknap Indian Reservation who helped spearhead the project, said Fort Belknap Indian Community Council Vice President George Horsecapture Jr. and other members will be on hand for the ceremony.
Kirkaldie said that later in the day, Ament will be the guest of honor at the annual Hays powwow, where people will express their appreciation and present the musician with a star quilt.
He will also distribute skateboards, helmets, knee and elbow pads and other apparel after the ribbon cutting.
Ament is paying for another addition to the Havre Skatepark, the second he has funded.
One addition to the Havre park was completed last year, and Evergreen Skateparks is in the middle of more work on more improvements.
Havre Parks and Recreation Director Chris Inman said in an email today that Ament is paying $20,000 for the addition to the skatepark on the 800 Block of Ninth Street.
"This addition will make the skatepark flow better," she said. "Jeff is great."
Kirkaldie said construction on the 4,200 square foot, $100,000 skate park, which will consist of dips and jumps, was completed in June.
She said the park will present skateboard enthusiasts on the reservation with a place to skate.
"Kids out there, they don't have anything, any vehicle, they have sidewalks and the side of the road," she said. "We do have a walking path out there that they use quite a bit, but they never really had a park."
She said that she reached out to Evergreen Skateparks, a Portland-based developer Ament has worked with to build or expand skate parks in area communities, after reading about how Ament paid for the revision of the skate park in Havre.
"So I emailed them to ask, 'Are you working with anybody,' and they were like, 'No, let me forward your message onto Jeff,' and that is how I started talking to him," Kirkaldie said.
Construction on the skate park began last summer.
Ament has financed the construction, expansion or renovation of over a dozen skate parks in Montana in the past decade, including ones in his home town Big Sandy, Havre, Missoula and Thunder Park on the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning.
Reader Comments(0)