craigdailypress.com

With funding secured for a new community center, Little Snake River Valley residents can soon see the building rise from the dirt.

Although the project is in its infancy, officials recently took the first step toward maturation when they selected Delta Construction to build the new, $2.9 million Valley Community Center through this winter in Baggs, Wyo.

Delta Construction has offices in Laramie, Wyo., Fort Collins and Steamboat Springs.

Callay Danford, secretary for the Valley Community Center Joint Powers Board, said the contractor plans to have the 17,700-square-foot building’s foundation and underground utilities in place by Dec. 31.

The building itself is a fabricated steel structure, Danford said, so workers will be able to install it during the winter with a prospective end date of mid-2010.

Residents from Baggs and surrounding communities — Danford lives in Dixon, Wyo., about 7 miles east — plan to use the facility for everything from weddings and funerals to sports events and youth activities.

Danford said finding activities for teenagers and younger children in the Little Snake River Valley has been a challenge for years.

Like Moffat County, many residents worry the lack of available activities leads to increased drug and alcohol abuse, she said.

“It’s a big issue here, and we don’t have a lot of places for kids to go,” Danford said. “We have a four-day school week here. We don’t have anything for kids to do on Friday when parents are at work, except for a local bar where there’s a pool table.”

The center will include a basketball court, exercise areas, track, family and game room, cafeteria, conference room and office space.

It will be an “everything building” for the community, Danford said.

“Right now, our school is used for a lot of these things, usually during school hours” she said. “Even funerals, the school is used.”

Danford added she didn’t know what would be the first event to christen the community center, but people are starting to talk about reserving space.

If the building is open by next summer, she guessed the first thing would be either a wedding or a Boys & Girls Club activity for teenagers and children.

Organizers still have a lot of work ahead, though.

While the building is paid for, Danford said the community still needs to raise money to pay for operations and maintenance.

Now that the community center’s construction is close to beginning, she said residents have been more willing to give money.

Still, Danford said there are no guarantees, but she and others felt like the most important thing would be to build the center, and money would follow once the community saw the good it could do.

“It does take a lot of faith,” she said. “But, we wanted to do this for the community, and we know we deserve it.”

Collin Smith can be reached at 875-1794 or cesmith@craigdailypress.com.