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Community center open house April 8
Nevada, Mo. -- The weather did not cooperate and did not allow the parking lot at the Franklin P. Norman City-County Community Center to be completely paved Friday, but Robin McHugh, parks and recreation director said Friday afternoon that the paving company plans to be back Monday morning to finish the parking lot and the community center will open for business Saturday, April 10, at 9 a.m., as previously planned.
The parks board also will be conducting two open houses to let area residents see the new facility and what the facility has to offer. The first will be Thursday, April 8, from 4:30-8 p.m. and the second will be Friday, April, 9, from 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.
McHugh told the parks board Wednesday that she was going to schedule these open houses even though the parking lot was not finished yet.
"Because we are going to have a parking lot by the end of the week," a determined McHugh told the parks board Wednesday, before the rain moved in earlier than expected on Friday.
The formal grand opening and ribbon cutting will be held April 22 from 5-6:30 p.m. along with a Nevada-Vernon County Chamber of Commerce business after hours. The formal ribbon cutting will be at 5:30.
McHugh said that they plan to serve hot dogs and popcorn.
"Something kind of fun, because be we are a fun place," she said.
She said that she wants to incorporate children in the grand opening as well as past parks board members, and other people who had a part in the new facility.
A second formal event to unveil the plaque honoring Franklin Norman will be held later, McHugh told the parks board during their March 31 meeting.
"We want to make it a big deal," she said
McHugh told the parks board that the unveiling will be held later in the spring so that Norman's daughter, who lives in California, can attend.
"The 3-by-4-foot plaque will be placed above the couch in the lobby," she said.
The plaque will have a picture of Norman on it as well as his biography and a history of the Norman Sheet Metal Company.
McHugh said that a lot of organizations have already booked the community center for activities.
"The Optimists Club are having a chili feed here on April 10," she said.
McHugh told the parks board that she is excited about several new classes that will be offered at the community center this spring: Zumba, which is a high energy dance-fitness class set to Latin music, essential yoga for both beginners and experienced yogi's and a Mini-Me Yoga class for adults and their toddlers in which they get to "roar like lions, kiss the turtles, jump like frogs and crawl like crabs" using yoga postures to increase flexibility.
She said that since former Nevada High School and Northwest Missouri State University tennis player Gina Pendrak is working for the park department this summer there are tentative plans to offer tennis lessons.
The parks board also voted to send a positive recommendation to the city council to suspend the city codes prohibiting discharging firearms in the city limits for the annual Missouri Osage Muzzle Loaders Fall Rendezvous on Sept. 9, 10, 11 and 12 at Marmaduke Park.
The city will also hold their annual outdoor classroom at Marmaduke Park. McHugh said that this year they are changing the event to be an all day activity, just for fourth grade students. They will have some additional stations and have the students bring a brown bag lunch.