Opening for Tonasket’s new skate park and BMX track is tentatively set for May 31 during Tonasket Founders’ Day festivities, according to B3 Skatepark Project organizers.
     William Emfinger Construction Co., Kettle Falls, designed and is building the in-ground, concrete skate park in Chief Tonasket Park. The BMX track will be adjacent to the skate park.
     Construction on the city-owned facility should be done in a couple weeks, reports Georgine Epley of the B3 Skatepark Project.
     “Billy Allstot and family will then work hand in hand with the City of Tonasket and the continued support of volunteers to landscape the surrounding park, and Gene Jones of Taz Construction will be delivering fill dirt and top soil to complete the BMX track,” said Epley.
     Anyone with fill dirt or topsoil to donate may contact Jones at 492-1550 or Epley at 486 2921, she said.
     Jesse Epley, who just turned 22, got the skate park construction effort going in the fall of 1999, when he was 13. He wrote a letter to then-mayor David Caddy asking if the city could build a skate park for the city’s children.
     Caddy replied that those kids would have to raise money for the project.
     After hundreds of fund-raisers and thousands of volunteer hours, “Jesse and a handful of very young volunteers are finally about ready to see their dreams become reality,” said his mom, Georgine.
     Funds came from grants, bazaars, door-to-door sales, spaghetti feeds and other events. More than $261,000 has been raised.
     The project has included “emotional roller coaster rides for the young people, with the ultimate heartbreak of watching their funds dwindle due to inflation and their 14,000-square-foot skate park be reduced in size to just over 8,000” square feet, said Georgine Epley.
     The group also secured a $129,000 grant from the state Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation.
     Other grants came from Wells Fargo Bank, STEPS grant of Okanogan, Douglas and Chelan counties, Tony Hawk Foundation, Wal-Mart, Okanogan Family Faire, Community Foundation of North Central Washington and the Jeremiah Allstot Family.
     “All of the remainder of the funds have been donations through local fund-raisers and a very supportive Tonasket and outlying community,” said Georgine Epley. “Without the support of the entire community this could never have been accomplished.”