Rejuvenated Point Marion Park more than just home for baseball team
POINT MARION – Point Marion Park has emerged from some off-season vandalism into a popular place once again with a grandiose plan for the future. It houses a pretty good baseball team, too. The Point Marion American Legion team, managed by Dennis Santella, is 12-7 in the Fayette league.
That seems appropriate, since the American Legion has been very instrumental in improving the park.
“The American Legion has been great,” said Mary Murphy, who is president of Friends of the Point Marion Park and its chairman of the board. “They are such good people. Anytime we need help, they step right up.
“We have a wonderful Legion team going and other baseball leagues have started up again. They’ve put a lot of time and a lot of money into it. Dave Slavensky, who owns Sky Construction and is with the American Legion, had two new dugouts put in at the Legion field, which never had dugouts before.”
“The dugouts are a welcome addition,” Santella said. “There still needs to be some work done. There’s a dip in left field that needs to be filled in, and we could use a fence. But it’s a good park with a nice infield.”
The team is in its second year at Point Marion Park after several seasons at Masontown-German Park.
“We have a couple important people who help us out,” Santella said. “I feel very fortunate to have a guy by the name of Forrest Brewer here. He cuts the grass and does anything I ask, even at a spur of the moment, maintenance or whatever. And Shawn Slavinsky, Dave’s son, always has the field lined and dragged for us before each game. Without those guys, I’d be losing my mind.”
The park also has basketball courts, but there’s much more to the park than facilities for those two sports.
“Last year we had a master plan drawn up for the park,” Murphy said of her Friends group and the Point Marion Borough Council. “We got input from a lot of people and many of them seem to favor adding a small skateboard area. We’d like to get some parents of skateboarders involved and try to do something with that.
“We have a lot of long-term projects. I think we’ve turned the corner. The park is definitely making a comeback.”
That, despite the efforts of some to damage the property.
“There was some graffiti and items taken in the park,” said Mark Foley, who runs the Point Marion Softball League, which plays its games at the park.”
Other reported damage involved picnic tables, benches, buildings broken into and fire damage.
“It’s terrible that people do things like that,” said Lisa Verano, who works the concession stand. “We just want people to know that the park and the leagues will go on no matter what people do, thanks to all the good people who pitch in and help.”
The vandals were reportedly caught.
“They did catch some of them and they’re supposed to be doing community service,” Foley said.
“The vandalism was handled by the police,” Murphy said. “I believe they have made some arrests and took people to court, which hopefully will deter future episodes of that kind.”
Foley commended Murphy’s Friends group and the community in general for their park help.
“The Friends of the Point Marion Park has helped secure grants, and there are a lot of people that pitch in,” Foley said. “The borough does a lot, the park commission … they help with maintenance. Everyone pitchers in and does their own share.
“Sometimes it seems like it’s always an uphill battle trying to keep it going with vandalism. It’s everywhere. But as long as we have people who are determined to put that behind them and move forward, the park will survive and get better. We even want to do a fall softball league. The more use the park gets, the better off it will be.”
People in the community enjoy the park for an array of reasons.
“We go down every once in a while and the kids go down the slides and play on things at the playground down there,” said John Clemmer of Point Marion. “That area’s had some damage, too, but they’re fixing it back up. I guess there are always some people who like to destroy things.”
“Thanks to grants the borough’s gotten, we’re painting the swing set and installing new swings,” Murphy said. “We’ve done some fundraising. Right now we’re selling tickets to the 84 Lumber Classic with all proceeds going to swings and playground equipment. We bought the tickets through the Community Foundation of Fayette County.”
“It’s a nice park,” Clemmer said, “and there are a lot of people that use it. It’s something that’s very nice to have in the community.”
The park has received a boost thanks to many people, according to Murphy.
“Friends of the Park, borough employees and volunteers are always working on keeping it clean and mowed,” Murphy said. “The fire department even lent out power washers last summer to help with cleaning. And we’ve been trying to renovate different things.”
A few of the improvements Murphy reported on the park, some helped by various grants, are as follows:
-The boat ramp was redone by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and it signed a new 25-year lease with the borough.
-New steel doors are in the process of being put on the field hose, the original building of the park, with long-range plans to renovate it for multi-purpose use.
-The Fayette County Vo-Tech School re-roofed the maintenance building.
-Approval was given for a DCED grant for new doors on the maintenance building and concession stand.
-A grant from DCNR was acquired for a walking path.
-A dock grant (boating infrastructure grant), thanks to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Commission through the Pa. Fish and Boat Commission, will result in a 300-foot long dock that will accommodate boats 26 feet long and larger. Murphy’s husband, borough councilman Joe Murphy, and two engineers, also from borough council in Dennis Groce and Joe Cocalis, are working on the project.
“We gotten donations from the Community Civic Organization, which donated $1,250, and from the Community Foundation of Fayette County, which donated $3,000 to a project with the borough contributing the balance,” Murphy said.
“We also have a proposed Rail Trail. We’re hoping in the next couple years the Rail Trail built from the West Virginia state line will go through town up to the Cheat River, and maybe beyond, called the Sheepskin Trail, through the Rails to Trails Program. Point Marion is a natural destination for people coming up the Mon River Trail.”
One person Murphy was adamant in praising for his work on the park is Chris Kaczmarczyk.
“Chris is a member of our Friends group and sits on the park commission, and he puts in a lot of his own time and money,” Murphy said. “Many people come down to help. A lot of people use their own riding mowers. We have a clean-up day twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, and a lot of people come out to help with that.
“A grant has been OK’d to build a marina at the park, although that’s still at the permitting stage right now. There are a lot of good things happening in Point Marion. This park is a very important part of the town.
“It’s one of the jewels of the community.”