Seven Wabaunsee County residents are turning their dreams of a golf course into reality. Jerry Childers of Lake Wabaunsee, Alan Clark from Eskridge, T.D. Fanning, Eskridge, Mary Reed Spencer, Lake Wabaunsee, Steve Mercer of Harveyville, Bill Ridinger, Lake Wabaunsee and David Stuewe of Alma are hopeful their efforts will result in the construction of a nine hole golf course at Lake Wabaunsee, located in southcentral Wabaunsee County.
It all began in the spring of 1993 when Childers, who is the postmaster at Eskridge and has a house at Lake Wabaunsee, began dreaming of construction of a golf course at the Lake, which would be the only golf course in Wabaunsee County.
“A neighbor of mine helped construct a golf course in Frankfort, which has been very successful for 20 years, with sand greens. It was built with a high school in mind, and that’s how we started with the initial concept of sand greens,” Childers explained.
But that idea of constructing sand greens was quickly scuttled because the Environmental Protection Agency will not allow sand greens any more because of the oil that must be used on them.
“With a lot of inspiration from the area and the board members, we decided to go for the grass greens,” Childers said. “We had so much positive response from everybody in town. People came out of the woodwork, offering money, offering tractors, offering help. The thing grapevine around this area and it was 99 percent positive,” said Ridinger. “That really carried us on to the grass greens.”
An organization was then formed and named the Wabaunsee Pines Golf Association, of which the seven above are the board of directors. Childers was named president, Clark vice-president, Fanning, treasurer and Spencer secretary.
“There are just some really avid people, besides we seven that are doing this, People that really want to see this go.”
The group began meeting weekly and is planning on holding open meetings in the near future and will also begin formal fund-raising soon.
Childers approached the Eskridge City6 Council about leasing land owned by the city located on the south edge of Lake Wabaunsee. The city agreed to a 15 year lease with an automatic renewal every 10 years for 47.5 acres, which will be the site for the Wabaunsee Pines Golf Course. The city issued the lease for no cost with the stipulation that if the not-for-profit public course ever becomes private property, the land would revert back to the city.
In fact, a former Eskridge resident who is now a practicing attorney in Wamego was instrumental in the development of the lease – Ed Van Petten worked with the group to write the lease. “He did everything for us. We would not have had the lease without Ed Van Petten, Spencer said. “He helped us out, no charge, as his contribution,” Childers said.
The nine hole course will be laid out with the help of two graduate students fro Kansas State University’s College of Architecture. Once a plan is formulated, most of the work will be performed by volunteers using donated equipment as much as possible.
“We plan on building the greens ourselves with volunteer help. We have a lot of people in the construction business who have offered to help,” Childers explained. The greens will be irrigated with water from Lake Wabaunsee. “We will follow Kansas State’s instructions implicitly.
One big difference between this and most other new golf course construction projects is cost. The board of directors are hopeful the initial course can be constructed for about $100,000 – a paltry sum compared to the cost for other facilities. For instance, an 18 hole course with a club house which was recently built in Troy cost $2.3 Million, which included the purchase of the land.
“I don’t think we’ll have to hire much work to be done because from Harveyville to Alma we’ve been having people volunteer to help,” Childers said. It will be a county wide project.” The board is hopeful work on the project can begin in the spring and be concluded in the fall, with the course being available for play in late fall. “It’s going to take from now to fall for the greens to get in shape. It takes a long time for the grass to grow properly,” Childers explained. The course will have prairie grass fairways, at least in the beginning, and the land selected for the course has natural positions for fairways among the trees which dot the landscape which sits amid the scenic Flint Hills.
The early plans call for a basic nine-hole course, the composition of which will be determined by the K-State students, and an office to collect fees, but future plans also call for the addition of a clubhouse and pro shop. The course will be open to the public.
With any luck we will expand in the future. That’s our whole purpose – to get a course started with proper maintenance. I would assume it’ll be successful and it will just grow,” Childers said.
The course received another boost recently when it was indorsed by the Future Farmers of America chapter at Mission Valley High School, which serves Eskridge, Harveyville and Dover. “It will give the students at Mission Valley, and other schools, a place to play without having to drive to Topeka or Emporia or wherever,” Childers said.
The group has also received information and assistance from Carlin Murphy, Wabaunsee County Extension agent, and plans to apply for grants and other funding. The group will be applying for some employment grants because the course will need a greens keeper and a course manager.
The group also encourages anyone who wants to offer assistance, advice or monetary donations to contact them. Donations can be made to the Mission Valley FFA Golf Course Fund, c/o Terry Fanning, P.O. Box xxx, Eskridge, KS 66423. “Come help us. We welcome any information we can get,” Ridinger said.
Smoke Signal, Feb 23,1994