News Star photo by Jeff Shultz: Terry Turner of Rosedale works out on one of the fitness machines at the Donald W. Reynolds Recreation Center in Pauls Valley. One year after the center opened its doors to the public, the state of the art facility has become a popular site for many in the Garvin County area.

By Jeff Shultz
Publisher

Terry Turner of Rosedale makes the short drive to Pauls Valley for one reason – to get a good cardio workout at the Reynolds Recreation Center in Wacker Park.

“I come over here just about every day,” Turner said as he worked out on one of the fitness machines at the Reynolds Center.

To say the Donald W. Reynolds Recreation Center has been a “success” in its first year of operations would be an understatement, according to data recently released by PV Parks and Recreation Director Jennifer Samford.

Samford’s one-year status report was compiled for the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation and the City of Pauls Valley.

According to Samford, memberships to the popular recreation and fitness facility were at 1,261 at the end of December 2011.

“When we started planning this facility several years ago, I thought if we had 500 paying members we would be doing good. I was totally blown away by our membership numbers,” Samford said.

The largest month for memberships was in March of 2011 with 1,338 individuals and families signing up for a membership to the center.

According to Samford, the largest group of people using the facility is women with 51.45 percent of the center’s members being female while 48.55 percent are males.

“Our most popular fitness class is Thursday night Yoga with Elisse Varner,” Samford told the News Star.

While a majority of members are from Pauls Valley (80 percent), Samford noted members are coming from all over Garvin County to use the facility.

“We have members from Wynnewood, Paoli, Elmore City, Stratford and Maysville. Basically every town in Garvin County is being served by the center,” she added.

And Samford noted the center is also drawing members from McClain, Carter, Murray, Pontotoc and Pottawatomie Counties.

The Reynolds Center has also been the “hot spot” for a variety of youth activities and sporting events as well as a meeting place for several civic and community organizations in the past year.

“We’ve also held Oklahoma Recreation and Park Society Board meetings here as well as a countywide health fair and classes for CLEET and first responder training,” Samford said.

As is the case with any new facility such as the Reynolds Center, there was an education period for the members shortly after opening.

“Many members had their own ideas of how things should be, the rules they would like to have followed and we just had to go over and over and over our policies,” Samford said.

The center was built with a $7.9 million Community Grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. The grant was for Phase I of the construction process, which was for the center itself.

Now the Reynolds Center Committee is planning Phase II of the project, a state of the art aquatic center next to the Reynolds Center.

Plans were originally for the aquatic center to be opened by this summer, but those plans have been put on hold due construction bids for the water park coming in over the anticipated $3 million budget.

“We’re basically having to go back to the drawing board on how we bid out the aquatic features in an effort to meet our budget,” Samford said.

However, she emphasized, the Pool Committee is committed to building a quality and unique aquatic center and may have to seek donations and grants to finish out the facility.

“Right now the sales tax voters approved to help build the aquatic center will only provide $3 million of revenue for the aquatic center’s construction.

“The committee has already decided to seek public funds if we can’t get the cost of construction within that budget,” she said.