‘Community First-minded’ volunteers work on concession stand improvements at Larks Park

Bruce Rumbaugh, owner of Diamond R Siding, works on the Larks Park concession stand seating area overhead Friday morning, accompanied by his dog Ben. Rumbaugh is donating his labor and supplies. “My boys and I live down here during summer baseball season,” he joked.

By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Those attending baseball games in Larks Park will enjoy major improvements to the concession stand this year.

Hays City Manager Toby Dougherty recently updated city commissioners about the activity that’s been going on at the facility on

“The Larks Park concession area is very undersized,” said Hays City Manager Toby Dougherty, “and when you’re at a game, it can be quite congested. They’re trying to do a lot of things in a very small building.”

“For many years we’ve had a group of concerned residents that truly take an interest in Larks baseball, and Hays baseball in general, as well as Fort Hays State University, wanting to do something different with that facility.”

Larks Park is home to the FHSU baseball team. The park, built in 1940 as part of a Work Projects Administration project, is owned by the city of Hays and operated by the FHSU Athletic Department. The facility hosts many college and high school baseball regular season games and tournaments as well as the Hays Larks semi-pro summer league team.

“There’ve been a lot of ideas for volunteer projects and group projects–none of them have ever seemed to get traction,” Dougherty recalled, until a year ago. An interested group had some money to match city money for improvements. Then they ran into a roadblock–the flood plain.

“When you’re constructing projects in the flood plain, it’s extremely difficult,” Dougherty explained, “and what they wanted to do was demolish the existing facility and rebuild. That would require adhering to National Flood Protection Act standards and Flood Plain standards, very difficult to do.

“So I challenged city staff to sit down with this group and figure out what their goals and expected outcomes are and see if we can make this work within the constraints of the flood plain regulations.

“We sat down with Parks staff, Planning, Inspection and Enforcement staff and the people interested in this project and they were able to come up with a plan of action that accomplished all of the needs of the Hays Baseball Association, Fort Hays, and the city. They put together a project that was approved by the city.

“It was done in a very economical manner with a lot of volunteer effort, a lot of people donating services and labor in kind,” he pointed out.

“When it’s done, as an attendee of either Hays baseball or Fort Hays events, you will see the concessions area much improved—enlarged with better seating and the foot traffic should move through there a lot better.

“We’re very happy with the project. It was a good effort, kind of indicative of what happens in Hays. We have a lot of community first-minded people and this is a good example of that.”

Dougherty said the Director of Parks, Jeff Boyle, and the volunteers will present a full report about the improvements to city commissioners when the project is completed.