HC Parks eyes Hayswood for pickleball complex...

Graylin Porter - Reporter

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Listen to the meeting’s audio full here:

On Wednesday, local pickleball players attended the Harrison County Parks Board meeting in support of a designated pickleball venue. Representatives from the group also attended last month's meeting to get approval from the board on a project, fully funded by the Harrison County Community Foundation, to repair their courts located at Rhoads Pool.

The board voted to approve the project at May's board meeting, full audio of that meeting found here.

However, on Wednesday Shickles outlined his vision for a much larger venue for pickleball at the bottom of Hayswood Hill (lower end where the basketball courts now are...end point of the Indian Creek Trail). He wants to "aggressively" develop this area into a "low-impact adult sports complex" including permanent cornhole games, bocce ball, pour and place rubber areas covered by sail cloth that can be used for activities such as yoga.

Shickles insists that this facility will open up the community to out-of-town pickleball players in the form of tournaments, ultimately bringing in more revenue. During his presentation, Shickles said that

"you're going to ask me 'how are we going to pay for it?' I don't know."

He then proposed to the board that he spend the next 30 days doing initial research to construct a plan with hard numbers for the project. The board unanimously approved the initiative.