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Dream's set in concrete Photo by Andy Atkinson Mike Swim of Talent, catches some air Saturday at the new skateboard park in Ashland. The park opened to the public Saturday. After years of obstacles and work, Ashland skateboard park is real By SUSAN JAY ASHLAND -- What makes the city's new skate park so "awesome" is not just the 9-foot-deep bowl or the stunt blocks and pyramids in between, but what it took to get here. "It's a lot of hard work that paid off," said 17-year-old KC Haxton. "All these skaters in the community designed it ... and to overcome all the obstacles we and the community came together. That's what makes it awesome," he said. Oh yeah, it's cool too because "you can do stunts faster and bigger, higher and scarier than you did before," he said. On Saturday, Haxton joined the skateboarders, stunt cyclists and in-line skaters who swarmed onto the park's hard, smooth terrain opening day. It was a day Rubin Davis will never forget. The owner of Low Down Boards in Ashland has been working on a skate park for the past four years, even more if he counts the time the city was thinking of one at Garfield park years ago. He said it seemed almost surreal to finally skateboard on a dream that took so long to come true. "The fact that it was built by skaters really means a lot," Davis said. Four years ago Davis joined Eric Frye and Noah Sanderson, then Ashland High students, to build a skateboard park in Ashland. Frye also had the idea for forming the Committee for Alternative Sports in Ashland, an advocacy group for alternative sports, which they used to organize local skateboarders to work on the park project. Sanderson, a chef at Kat Wok, learned to draft on his own, and started designing the park. They attended planning meetings, City Council meetings, plowed through geological studies and helmet ordinances. The project's initial donor even backed out at one time. But after word spread of the blow, donations began pouring in. Jan Janssen, Ashland Police department's youth diversion officer, has been at their side as mentor and mom, ushering them through a political and civic process alien to them. "This is an amazing moment for me," Janssen said. For her and for Davis there were times when it wasn't easy to continue. But the movers and shakers of Ashland always answered her request for support. "I think the timing was right. More and more extreme sports are making an impact on the sports scene now. Their kids are changing the face of sports," she said. Together with the city's young and old skateboarders, the park commission and community supporters, the skateboarders raised $50,000. That amount matched the park commission's share to build the park, which is on two-thirds of an acre at the corner of Water Street and Van Ness Avenue. To the novice eye, the park looks like a bunch of empty swimming pools, but to the skateboard lover it's the park of all parks, built with 400 square yards of concrete with curves smoother than glass. It has something for every level of skater, and stunt cyclists too. There's the snake run and the 4-foot bowl for beginners, and then the three bowls of varying depths for the more advanced. Great American Skate Parks set the forms and the reinforcing bar, and helped with the finish work. They are also working on the skate parks in Jacksonville, Talent and Medford. "This will be the mecca for concrete skate parks," said Eric Dawkins, 31, one of the partners of Great American Skate Parks. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA