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Show New Softball complex closer CEDAR CITY Anew sotball complex for Cedar City is transforming from fantasy into fact, thanks to the efforts of several local business, recreation, Cedar City and Iron County School District officials. An executive committee including Cedar City Recreation Director Steve Hodson, Cedar City Manager Joe Melling, Cedar City businessmen Barry Church and Dick Harris and others has been formed to initiate planning, fund raising and promotion of the project. There are presently 23 Softball teams in Cedar City using one municipal diamond. Those 23 teams translate into over 325 players, both men and women, who are invlolved in one of the area's fastest growing sports softball. . "We're at our maximum right now," explained Steve Hodson, recreation director. "Our softball park is used five nights a week from 6-11 p.m. and we're using the LDS Church field on Mondays. A field can only take so much." The present field "is maintained and watered on weekends and few if any teams could be added to the functioning leagues. Teams don't have any practice time due to the current arrangement and a top-quality, top-quality, large-scale tournament can't be conducted in Cedar City without additional facilities, according to Hodson. The committee has received formal approval from the Iron County Schood District to develop two fields in the area immediately east of the Cedar High School football field on district owned property. Currently weed-covered, the vacant field already has a sprinkler system installed and would be an ideal location for a two-field two-field complex. Part of the incentive for the project has come from the United States Slowpitch Softball Association. Because of the favorable showing of a Cedar City team last summer at a 48-team tournament in Salt Lake City, The USSSA has approached softball organizers in Cedar and asked them if a tournament or tournaments could be hosted here. The USSSA pays the costs of such events and with two additional fields, tournaments of this stature could be conducted, even beginning this summer if all goes well. Tournament organizers estimate about $100,000 is brought into a communtiy every time one of these two or three-day three-day tourneys is conducted, including teams from surrounding states. The school district is allowing use of the land for the project, Cedar City Corporation will contribute manpower and equipment, and about $50,000 will be raised through various means for funding. Special fund raising projects will soon be announced to help with the project. |
