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Asphalt poured for wheelchair path Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli Jack Gell, left, Ken Chapman and Jim Brown take a test run on a new asphalt wheelchair path at Howard Prairie Lake Monday. The group from Linda Vista Care Center raised money for the project so disabled people could enjoy better access to the lake. By Bill Varble Mail Tribune HOWARD PRAIRIE LAKE � Rolling back and forth on rain-dappled blacktop, Jim Brown surmises that whoever built the new wheelchair path at Howard Prairie Resort knew what he was doing. "A fantastic job," says Brown, a patient at the Linda Vista Care Center in Ashland. With a gentle rain falling Monday afternoon, Brown and several other men on wheels are whizzing around the short path adjacent to the county�s wheelchair-accessible restrooms just up from the marina. It�s the first group of wheelchair users on the path, which was finished only an hour or so earlier. Brad Weller, a maintenance supervisor at Linda Vista, drove Brown and several of his buddies up for an afternoon outing. Weller headed a fund-raising effort that brought in $28,000 over the last seven months for handicapped-accessible projects at various sites. He says the drive was kicked off by a $10,000 gift from the family of a Linda Vista resident. "It�s one of our favorite areas," he says of Howard Prairie. Weller worked closely with county officials, who told him the county didn�t have money for the projects. Donations for future projects can be made to the Wheelchair Access Fund in care of Jackson County, 400 Antelope Road, White City, OR 97503. Jim Johnston of Howard Prairie says the path fills a critical need. "We have people that come up, and the grandparents will just sit in the car," he says. "It�s not just people in wheelchairs. It�s people who can�t walk over uneven ground." After being graded and readied, the path was poured and finished in about an hour and a half Monday by seven workers from Pacific Paving of Central Point, which knocked $1,000 off the cost of what would have been a $6,000 job. "The reasons were right," says Pacific Paving�s Bill Schoenleber. Weller designed the 8-foot-wide path, which winds from parking spaces through the tall trees just south of the restrooms and encloses an area big enough for several large picnic tables and open space. It�s an area from which bald eagles can sometimes be seen soaring across the lake. Weller says future plans call for an asphalt path running out the jetty by the marina, perhaps by June. He even envisions a pier shooting off the jetty to provide handicapped-accessible fishing. The group last summer placed wheelchair-accessible tables at Emigrant Lake near Ashland. Weller says that even after years of advocacy, it�s often a problem finding outdoors spots that are handicapped-accessible. "It�s a real problem," Brown says. "You don�t know how much this means." Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.