A pool in progress
Mission Valley Aquatics celebrates groundbreaking
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“Here we are, all because of everybody in this community,” Mission Valley Aquatics Project Director Tana Seeley said at the July 8 groundbreaking ceremony for the highly-anticipated Mission Valley Aquatics Center.
For the last 50 years or so, the valley has wanted a pool, Seeley added. Chronicling the MVA’s progress, Seeley said the group formed in 2003, a feasibility study was completed in 2004, then the group received the land and wrote a business plan. Residents voted to form a recreation district with a mill levy in 2008, and two anonymous donors each put in $1 million.
Seeley has worked tirelessly with the MVA board to fundraise for an indoor swimming facility for the Mission Valley Community. Phase 1 will consist of the building and the 25 yard, 8-lane fitness/recreation pool.
“Thirty years ago I wanted a pool for my son,” Polson Mayor Pat DeVries said, adding that now she will get to use it and he won’t. She praised Seeley and the board for their hard work.
As someone who taught reservation-wide recreation when he first worked in the Mission Valley, President Emeritus Joe McDonald of Salish Kootenai College said he knew a pool was needed because kids did not know how to swim.
Offering a prayer, Corwin Clairmont, SKC art department chair, said, “We ask the Creator in a good way to bless this land … we ask the Creator to help in the construction and with decisions … and support the good spirit, the good feeling you are putting in the ground.”
Before a crowd of about 200 people, Seeley, her husband Matt, mathematics department chair at SKC, Mike and Marlo Maddy, who donated the land, Penny Jarecki, community representative, MVA board members Co Carew, Raina Stene, David Waterman, Dick Silberman, DeVries, Clairmont, McDonald, Lake County Commissioner Bill Barron, contractor Dewey Swank, Swank Enterprises, and designer Mike Absalonson, Architects Design Group, took turn using eight golden shovels to break ground on the site south of Polson in the Ridgeway subdivision.
Board president Hu Beaver, a builder and excavator by trade, brought his own shovel. After the ground was broken, the dignitaries all poured water into the depression, symbolizing the pool to come.
Timewise, Swank noted, the building will take about a year. First order of business will be to rearrange the hole in the hill, he said.
During a phone interview, Tana said, “I’ve been a believer all along. I knew this could happen. It feels good. I feel we’re really making the right decisions.”
The groundbreaking was an emotional event for Tana and some of the board members since they’ve put a lot of work into the project. She added that the ceremony was perfect and all the speakers spoke from the heart.
MVA was founded in 2003, and they meet once a month, the fourth Monday of every month at 4 p.m. at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. Fundraising efforts through the years have included Water Daze — scheduled this year for Aug. 6 at 1 p.m. — a dunk tank, pledges, direct mailing, tables at the trade fair and the Flathead Cherry Festival, sandwich boards and a Pry Open the Piggy Bank campaign to involve the school children.
Donations are still welcome for the project. Although $3 million has been raised, another $650,000 is needed to complete the first phase. For more information visit www.mvaquatics.org.
