Dare Ya Expo Finds Roots In Community Trail

Shane Zickefoose of Oskaloosa Rides Bikes gives a demonstration at Sundays Dare Ya Expo.

Shane Zickefoose of Oskaloosa Rides Bikes gives a demonstration at Sunday’s Dare Ya Expo.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Penn Central Mall has been a busy place lately hosting various community events. The latest was on behalf of MCRF and their Dare Ya’ Expo.

The purpose of the expo was to help introduce community members to the various forms of recreation possibilities in the area. On Sunday 37 entities set up around a replica of the MCRF Lacey Recreation Trail.

Sherry Vavra, MCRF Executive Director, said that the inspiration for the day’s event came from a desire to showcase how many different forms of recreation that is available to community members. Vavra said that initially 94 different organizations that provide some sort of recreation to residents were contacted, showing just how diverse options are for individuals. “Who knew we had this much to do,” said Vavra.

And with that, the desire to showcase all of those different activities and organizations was born.

On the floor of center court was a replica trail that lead people around to various activities, as a way to represent how the recreation trail has been bringing groups and individuals together since its start back in

“We facilitate and promote recreation. That’s our whole goal,” says Vavra of the organization’s mission.

The recreation trail consists of 13 completed miles, with the first piece of trail being planted in 1999. Fifteen miles of trail are planned in total.

Carl Drost has been one of those individuals involved with the trail project since day one, when Joe Crookham and he first put the idea on paper on Drost’s showroom floor.

Drost will tell you that the original idea came from Crookham, and sprang from a National Parks meeting in which the discussion involved cities having trails. “He came back and wondered why Oskaloosa didn’t have one.”

“Then he [Crookham] came and talked to me about it and I said, ‘Joe, this is a crazy idea’ and he said, we really need to build it,” Drost remembers. “He says, it’s really going to do the community a benefit.”

“One Saturday afternoon on the floor of the John Deere store showroom, we taped together all of the maps of Oskaloosa and surrounding area. We wanted it to go around the town. Joe wanted it to go around the town. We took magic markers and highlighters and we outlined a section of a trail around town. That’s really when we knew hey, it is possible,” says Drost.

“That’s really where it started. One Saturday afternoon with 3 people and magic markers”, remembers Drost with a smile, “on our hands and knees.”

Since that initial day, it has gone from magic markers to bulldozers and a paving machine, and now it’s an integral part of recreation in the Oskaloosa and Mahaska County area.

“Joe has done a lot of the land-owner easement work, and getting permits and talking politics with the city and the county,” explained Drost. “My part of the project is really building the trail. Did I have a lot of experience in building a road? No, sure didn’t.”

Drost remembers the first pass he made with the bulldozer, with John Pothoven and Joe Crookham walking a trail ahead of the bulldozer and making a path through to see how it looked, “and we just went from a rough cut with a bulldozer through a timber to getting it graded down to where it would work and make it wide enough.”

“The surprising thing for us is how close the finished product is to that original trail [drawn out on the showroom floor],” says Drost. “It’s probably not more than 50 feet off in any one spot.”

“When we started on the trail, and we saw the community involvement with it, after that it spawned Lacey Recreation, which spawned the little league diamonds, which spawned the soccer fields, which spawned the Babe Ruth fields, which spawned the community stadium, which spawned now the community soccer stadium,” says Drost.

Many of the groups at the Dare Ya Expo can find roots in that original trail planted in 1999.

Posted by on Mar 30 2015. Filed under Local News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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