-T--. Ml " - ' ! :1 V J , - rn$ti. P. Vr Jamie Veater and Wally Veater, Panguitch subcontracted for Kyle Panguitch City Baseball Complex. The complex features three new Wilson Fencing of Cedar City to weld the backstops for the new baseball diamonds for high school, Softball and little leaguers. 'Dream Come True" Baseball Complex Is Nearing Completion For Panguitch Fans PANGUITCH "This is a dream come true for a lot of Panguitch Pan-guitch residents who have wanted more for baseball for a lot of years," said Panguitch City Manager Man-ager Allen Henrie, referring to the new Panguitch Baseball Complex .oing up on the southeast corner of "town. The complex will feature three state-of-the-art baseball diamonds, one for high school competition, one for Softball and one geared to little leaguers. Because each field can be easily adapted, the complex will be in hot demand for playoffs and tournaments. Serious talk about a baseball complex began last year after Panguitch Pan-guitch City passed the one percent sales tax initiative to be collected because Panguitch qualified as a resort destination. A committee, comprised of Bruce Dalton, Denny Orton, Kay Englestead, Brian Bremner and Allen Al-len Henrie was selected to put plans together for the complex. Subsequently, Subse-quently, Sunrise Engineering was hired to do the initial planning. The committee proceeded to secure se-cure the land needed, approximately 14 acres. Panguitch City had found it necessary to purchase extra land when they installed the sewer lagoons la-goons to secure the future of endangered endan-gered prairie dogs in that vicinity. Panguitch City was then able to trade 28 acres of that land for 14 acres of Howard and Tink Hatch family property just southeast of the local high school. Sunrise Engineering estimated the project at $700,000 so planners had to scale back some and look for inventive ways to cut corners. Panguitch City committed up to $250,000 and Garfield County School District committed $100,000. The district will pay $50,000 this year and $25,000 for the next two years. "The best move the committee made," according to Henrie, "was to select Kay Englestead as project manager to oversee the entire operation." opera-tion." The project is about two thirds complete with mostly smaller subcontractors sub-contractors and many donated man-hours man-hours and equipment. Men and equipment from both Garfield County road department and Utah Department of Transportation have worked on their own time to push the project forward. City workers also and local baseball fans have logged numerous hours. Fencing is up and backdrops welded into place by Wally and Jamie Veater working for Kyle Wilson Fencing of Cedar City. Raintree Landscaping, St. George won the bid for the sprinkler sprin-kler system and the bid was let this week for a two-story 30 x 40 building build-ing to house restrooms, equipment, concessions, etc. Upstairs will be the traditional "Eagles Nest" where announcers, score keepers, video-graphers video-graphers will have a good vantage point to conduct business. Conduit is being placed now for power lines, however, the complex may wait for a year or two for lighting due to financial constraints. con-straints. Jack Soper with Utah State University Extension Service is working on grant funding to landscape land-scape the project. Local health enthusiasts will be gratified to hear that a nice walkingjogging path is planned to run completely around the baseball complex and grass and shrubbery will be planted to make this an excellent experience. Planned in the future is a playground play-ground area for children and picnicpavilion pic-nicpavilion for entertaining. For the present time, a large parking area will be graveled and a nice wide access lane prepared. Planners worked closely with the Bernard Henrie family and others to develop good access to the facility. It is hoped that the project will be far enough along for the high school ball team to play at least one game this season in the complex.