STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

A groundbreaking ceremony for an extension to Ketchum’s skate park will be held at noon Monday, Sept. 18.

The ceremony will be held at the Guy Coles Skate Park at the corner of Warm Springs and Saddle roads.

The City of Ketchum approved $127,650 to hire a contractor to design, engineer and build new features at the 22-year-old park, which opened in 1995. The project calls for new features on the northeast corner, including rails, elevated ramps and extending existing bowls.

The Oregon-based Dreamland Skateparks LLC, which has built skate and bike terrain parks across Idaho and the Northwest, is overseeing the project. The park already underwent one expansion to include two new concrete bowls in 2005.

The skate park is Ketchum's most heavily used park with skate boarders challenging themselves from dawn to dusk, said Recreation Director Jen Smith.

“The Guy Coles Skate Park has always been a community-initiated and supported park,” said Ketchum Mayor Nina Jonas. “It’s great to see the use the park gets and it’s thrilling to see the tricks executed by the local kids.”

The City Council authorized $80,000 for the project, including $40,000 requested by Jonas from the Ketchum Urban Renewal Agency. The Guy Coles Skate Park Trust Fund, the city’s Parks and Recreation Miscellaneous Donations Trust Fund and a crowd funding campaign kicked in additional resources for the project.

And City Council member Jim Slanetz held a fundraiser at the Board Bin, where the sale of a hundred original art skateboard decks designed by local artists and even youngsters raised $14,000. An aditional $1,433 was raised via online donations

“The skate park has been a work in progress since the early 1990s. In fact, it was one of the first public skate parks in the country and, with this new addition, it will once again be one of the best in the Northwest,” said Slanetz.

The designs were creative and far ranging. Board Bin employee Kirsten Phillips designed "The Eagle;" Wyatt Caccia, the "Skeleton Jazz Band; Bree Vanden Heuvel, "The Tooths," Scott Fairfax, "Spud Bud," and Zeppelin Pilaro, "Viking Dude."

Even Guy Coles' grandson Makenzie got in on the act.

The city will provide food and drink by local vendors at the groundbreaking.