Vermillion offers new winter activity for community

Winter is still upon Vermillion, which is good news for the Vermillion Parks and Recreation Center — the cold means the ice rink can be open for a few more weeks.

Located at Barlow Park, just south of Hy-vee, the ice rink was originally only going to be a skate park, Ryan Baedke, a supervisor with the Parks and Recreation Department, said.

“It started out as a place to confine skateboards,” Baedke said. “Skateborders would go to the downtown areas and use flowerpots or move picnic tables to use as skating apparatuses.”

The city recreation program worked with one of the most well-known skate park designing corporations, American Ramp Company, to design the skate park, Baedke added.

“We built the skate park in 2012, and it was right before we started building that we came up with the skate rink idea,” said Tyler Tragesar, Parks and Recreation recreation technician. “We don’t get to use it as long as the skate park though.”

Baedke said the idea of using the facility as a skate park “definitely helped increase the value of the project.” The year the skate park opened was also the first year they made it a skating rink, Tragesar said.

To create the ice rink, recreation workers just flood the park and smooth it out for maintenance.

This year, the Parks and Recreation program bought 40 new skates for the public to rent for free in the warming house.

“I first skated at Barlow last year, and the ice was kind of rough,” junior Dakota Navrkal said. “I went to the office to tell them I would volunteer to help maintain the rink, and they actually offered me a job.”

Navrkal keeps the snow cleared off the rink and works in the warming house.

The park gets a variety of customers, including many families and a few USD students. Navrkal said he tells people on campus about the rink a lot, as many students “don’t know that there is an ice rink in Vermillion at all.”

They also update their Facebook page in order to get the word out.

“The first day we were able to have the ice rink this year wasn’t until January 11,” Tragesar said. “So we’re hoping to squeeze a few more colder weeks in.”

The rink is free to everyone and open during the week from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and on the weekends from 1 p.m.  to 5 p.m.