The Farmington Skate Park—the first thing that comes to mind is the stereotypical skater punk. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The largest outdoor concrete skatepark in Southeast Missouri featuring 30,000 square feet of challenging twists and turns for both beginning and advanced skaters. The Skate Park is FREE of charge and open to everyone. The facility is unsupervised, and users assume all risks inherent in the use of the facility.
The skaters are incredibly polite and helpful to each other, and all have a great passion for speed, fun and learning new tricks. But one of the most amazing things about the skate park isn’t the skateboards, or the world-class skate course, or the extreme skaters. The most amazing thing is that it's there.
When Marco vanRaalten - The Pied Piper of Air - first came to the community Kevin Engler, mayor at that time, took him over to the old swimming pool and talked about plans of the City of Farmington building a skate park. It was Marco and his organization, Youth For Christ, who rented the old pool building and ran the park. The $120,000 construction project was completed six months later. Today the skate park is maintained by the City of Farmington and it free to use.
...these kids are not afraid to take risks and they know they'll get bumped and bruised in the process.
Skateboarding and biking are extreme sports...
Skateboarding and biking are extreme sports and these kids are not afraid to take risks and they know they may get bumped in the process."
They're passionate people with great leadership potential. They want to compete, to go where no skater has gone before, and they are all in great health as the sport requires a lot of exercise and fitness.
The kids who are here come from all walks of life.
If aliens from another planet were shown the park they would love the architecture - the cool looks, the waves, bowls, pyramids and fun boxes. I bet you they'd want to go for their own daily grind - get a skate board and fly on those curves and ride the park. They'd probably tell us that you only live once, so why not live life to the fullest? And I can't imagine what they would bring from their ship to skate on.
GET OUT THERE!
