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Talent skate park gets national attention Photo from Mail Tribune files Skate park designer Eric Dawkins tries out Talent's skate park earlier this year. The park, made possible by an all-community effort, gets good reviews from national skateboarding magazines. Magazine quotes skate pros saying the park is `rad' By MELISSA MARTIN TALENT -- Residents should be proud. Their new skate park got a thumbs-up from a group of professional skateboarders that traveled the West Coast checking out the latest concrete playgrounds. "It looked too rad," the pros said in the December issue of Thrasher, a magazine read by 160,000 skateboarders across the country. "There was an 8-foot wall that bowled around and down to a 4-foot section. There was a lip that led into a tight pocket that was about 8-feet all around, with no flat." For nonskaters, this translates: Southern Oregon has some of the best parks on the West Coast. "More than the fact that Thrasher mentioned the skate parks is the fact that they appreciate the transitions and the building methods of these parks," says Rueben Davis, owner of Low Down Board Shop in Ashland. Talent made the skateboard map because of its designer, Eric Dawkins, a local resident who owns Great American Skate Parks. He also designed skate parks in Ashland, Jacksonville, Cave Junction, Grants Pass and Portland. "These first little mentions in Thrasher, Slap and Transworld Skateboarding (magazines) are just the beginning," Davis says. "Already the pros are coming to check out the parks. They find there are good transitions, good lips so that a skater can go from one obstacle to the next. "It just all flows together and that's something a landscape architect or a swimming pool contractor that designs a lot of skate parks for cities won't have an eye for." If skateboarders like the new Talent park, they have local residents and the folks at City Hall to thank. Parents, engineers, contractors and others have donated time, money, materials and labor to complete two of the three bowls planned at the 12,000-square-foot skating area in Talent. Phase two involves building a gazebo with restrooms, a snack bar and an upstairs viewing area, says Dave Bobb, an Ashland art gallery owner and parent of skateboarding teens. He's donated 600 hours for the skate park. "In the summer, when it's hot, kids will have a place to be in the shade and it will also be a place for the judges, or a great place for camera angles," Bobb says. The park got a boost recently, when Talent received a $10,000 grant from the Meyer Memorial Trust of Portland. Urban Renewal donated the land for the park and $10,000, and the City Council gave $35,000 from system development charges. And Talent plans to call in the National Guard and the utility companies to finish the skate park, says Leahnette York, city administrator. Stirring up the entire community to collect money for skate parks seems to be the trend in Southern Oregon. In Jacksonville, youths raised $11,000 and the city pitched in $9,000 for a park that opened last month near the U.S. Post Office. (Thrasher Magazine pros called Jacksonville's park "one of the best parks we skated the entire time.") In Ashland, local youth worked with police to raise $50,000, matched by the Ashland City Council, for a park on city-donated property near the recycling depot. The park should be completed this spring. "Talent is bigger and has more vertical skating, but the thing about Ashland is that it has street skating, ramp skating, beginner through advanced and a good variety of everything you could ask for in a skateboard park," Davis says. "I'm feeling confident that we're going to have one of the best skate parks anywhere, right here in Ashland." Medford has an indoor skate park Medford skateboarders who are feeling left out of the skate park picture should cheer up: Medford has the only indoor skate park in the county. And a Medford mother is raising money for the city's first outdoor park. The Underground is a Campus Life-run skate park in a warehouse at 836 Mason Way, off of Stage Road. Quarter pikes, banked ramps, ledges, a pyramid and more translates into a radical evening for local youth, says club director Ken Pritchett. "I think we have the best thing in the valley, even compared to the outdoor parks, because we offer the kind of obstacles you see on the street," Pritchet says. The hours are 6 to 9 p.m. Mondays for high school students and 6 to 9 p.m. Thursdays for middle school students. Friday hours are 6 to 9 p.m. Fridays for all ages, and Saturday sessions are 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m., all ages. The cost is $3 per session with a membership card or $6 without. The membership card costs $10 and includes one free session. Call 608-0763 for more information. Medford's outdoor skate park, meanwhile, is in the early stages. Parent Denise Ellis and volunteers from Jazzercise are selling T-shirts that read "Help make the dream come true. Bear Creek skateboard park, a Medford park" to help raise money for the $150,000 park. It will be located where the BMX track now stands at Bear Creek Park. The city has donated $25,000 plus the land. "I'm doing this in honor of my son, Rusty Francis, who passed away last March," she says. Rusty was an avid skateboarder. To order one of the $10 T-shirts, call Ellis at 857-0780. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA