SPRINKLING SOME JOY

What a day to play in the spray.

“I love it!” screamed 5-year-old Hanna Pavulans of Eugene, as she ran out of the sky-high shooting water toward her mother, Minna Pavulans. And then, just like that, she ran right back in.

“Cool,” said Hanna’s 2-year-old brother, Henrik. And he literally was, as in shivering, his little wet arms wrapped tightly around his body, but a big smile on his face nonetheless.

To say the new, $260,000 spray play area that opened Thursday at Washington Park was a big hit with local kids is like saying kids like candy. Or the sky is blue.

It was obvious from the ear-piercing screams that seemed to go on and on and on after Mayor Kitty Piercy and a host of Eugene Celebration Slug Queens past and present counted down from 10, and the water was finally turned on at 5:15 p.m., after two years of planning and fundraising.

“Another great day in Eugene,” Piercy told the hundreds who came to Thursday’s grand opening of the spray park, which replaced a decades-old wading pool that was one of five remaining in city parks when all were decommissioned at the end of the summer of 2009 because of new state health regulations.

The city’s parks department expected about 200 to show, and thus ordered 200 hot dogs. But when planners saw the crowd, a store run was made for 200 more.

“A great place for kids to be,” Piercy told the crowd, which came not only for the new water feature but to make chalk art on the park’s sidewalks, get their faces painted, and eat the hot dogs, watermelon and ice cream bars provided by the Eugene Parks Foundation, which spearheaded the project’s fundraising.

Piercy said the new spray play area, the grandest of what are now four spray play areas — the others are at Fairmount Park, Oakmont Park and RiverPlay in Skinner Butte Park — is a “perfect example of making lemonade out of lemons.”

The 5.5-acre park is located along Washington Street between 19th and 21st avenues. Many in the Friendly Area Neighbors association were not happy when the wading pool was shut down two years ago. The pool had been a popular summertime spot since the 1950s. But that was all forgotten Thursday.

“It’s great,” said Nikole Gipps of Eugene, who was holding her soaking wet and crying 2-year-old son, Brannan, in her arms. Brannan had just gone underneath a blue horseshoe-shaped bar that shoots jets of water when activated, and it caught him by surprise. “It’s not going to eat you,” Gipps told her son.

“I definitely think kids are going to be coming down here a lot,” said Gipps, whose daughter, Kelsey, 5, was also playing in the water.

The project’s original cost estimate was $150,000, of which the city was going to contribute $75,000.

“There were some surprises once we found out how much the equipment was going to cost,” Eugene Parks Foundation board member Linda Wheatley said. “And the price of concrete went up.”

The city ultimately contributed $110,000 to the project, parks development coordinator Carrie Peterson said, most of it paid with system development charges paid by builders. The rest, $150,000, came from area residents and businesses. Two family foundations, the Woodard Family Foundation of Cottage Grove ($13,000) and the Roberts Family Foundation of Eugene ($10,000), are the two major contributors thus far, Peterson said.

Donors’ names appear on the spray area’s art tiles, created by local artist Betsy Wolfston, that line the project with images of slug queens, flowers, bees and other creations.

“I think of it as the boardwalk of patron saints of Washington Park,” Wolfston told the crowd before the water was turned on.

Fundraising continues for the project. You can have your name put on one of the boulders that are part of the project’s landscaping for $1,500, or in one of the tiles for $150. If you want to contribute $100,000, you can have the entire spray play area named for you.

The city hopes to create more spray play areas in city parks, Peterson said.

And that would be just fine with 8-year-old Kemoni Natison of Eugene, an Edgewood Elementary School student who was clearly enjoying jets of spray shooting into his face Thursday.

“I think it’s really fun,” Kemoni said. “I’m glad they made it. I’m looking forward to the next time I come here.”


Mark Baker has been a journalist for the past 25 years. He’s currently the sports editor at The Jackson Hole News & Guide in Jackson, Wyo.