BUCKHANNON – The Upshur County Recreation Complex is looking for a location where the community can enjoy physical activity.
New president of the Board of Directors for the Upshur County Recreation Complex Mitch Shaw said the center is meant to offer recreation for all ages.
“Our goal and our vision is to be a full-scale recreation complex, and by that, I mean we want to be able to service the whole community – not just adults, not just sports, but all kinds of recreation,” Shaw told My Buckhannon in a recent interview. “Our goal is to build a facility that can support and provide opportunities for all ages to be more active and to be more recreational, whether it be playing soccer or whether it be additional football fields for youth football.”
He said their primary goal is to secure a location for the complex where they can start having tournaments and start more fundraising.
“Our dream scenario is just to have some property, and whether that be all in one location, or whether it be a few different locations, we’re flexible enough to make it work wherever and however it needs to be,” Shaw said.
He said they may have to purchase property in a couple different locations to allow for both indoor and outdoor facilities.
“We’d prefer to have it all in one location, but we are trying to remain as flexible as possible knowing that we’re going to probably run into some hiccups along the road,” Shaw said.
He said the idea for the recreation center came from the late Shawn Tucker, who wanted to give the community a place to be active.
“A few years back, Shawn Tucker was very much involved with youth soccer around here and youth soccer has had a historical problem of getting locations to play, and it continues to be an issue today,” Shaw said. “He started looking at it and started doing some research and he found there’s several communities in the surrounding states who have built recreation complexes in their community and saw exponential growth.”
Shaw said the center is always looking for volunteers for their projects and fundraisers, even if there aren’t current openings on the Board of Directors.
“We welcome any member to come; it’s $25 a year for a membership,” Shaw said. “You can come to all of our meetings and help us out with fundraising and fundraising ideas. With that $25 you get to vote at our yearly meeting in any of our major decisions that are made during those meetings, usually held either in January or February of each year.”
The complex is also working with the Stockert Youth & Community Center to co-host the Upshur County Men’s Basketball League.
“I’ve talked with Debora (Brockleman) and we agreed to make this a good event that can raise funds for both Stockert and UCRC and help the community from both aspects,” Shaw said. “The intent all along was that we would not be in competition with Stockert.”
He said they plan to still organize the league to start around June 29 and last through July, with the championship game to happen in the first week of August. Shaw said they will wait to postpone the league due to COVID-19 until they see how it develops closer to the start of the league.
They hope to solicit a league sponsor to cover the fees that will go toward the referees and 10 to 12 team sponsors.
“Each team would then be assigned to one of those 12 sponsors, and then they would get a T-shirt that would be their jersey, so each business that sponsors would have their business represented at each game their team plays in,” Shaw said.
The April 13 board meeting will now likely occur over a video conference and Shaw encourages the community to follow their Facebook page for more developments. Search for ‘Upshur County Recreation Complex’ on Facebook.
