July 8, 2007

By John R. Moses

Frontiersman TALKEETNA - A professional playground designer with family roots here has met with a playground planning committee to give his professional expertise - as well as some volunteer time.

Leon Smith of Planet Earth Playscapes told the Talkeetna Community Playground Project committee last week he would act as a consultant along with playground design firm Leathers and Associates if that firm would work with him.

“I'm really excited to be involved,” said Smith, who lived up the tracks from Talkeetna until he was 6, when his father moved into Talkeetna and the rest of the family went to Fairbanks. His summers were spent in Talkeetna, where he had birthday parties at a small park that used to be in Village Square.

His father still lives in Talkeetna, but there's no park downtown anymore. It was removed years ago after an adult was injured on a swing set.

“I think there's definitely a need for it,” Smith said of a new park.

The playground has the support of the Mat-Su Borough and the Talkeetna Community Council, and received a small bed tax grant to help defray planning costs.

The volunteer group organizing the project has “a great spirit” and a lot of enthusiasm, Smith said.

Leathers, a firm that has built playgrounds in communities across the United States, will have a representative in Alaska in September. A group in Seward is also constructing a community playground.

Smith said Leathers and his firm are members of a nonprofit called Community Built, which supports the goal of constructing playground projects. The professional environment in the playground design community is friendly, and he expects the process will go smoothly.

Playground organizers hope to raise enough cash through the sale of merchandise and food at Talkeetna's Moose Dropping Festival July 14-15 to pay for a Leathers and Associates designer to stay in Talkeetna and meet with the group. The committee's booth will sell bags with the playground drive's logo, strawberry shortcakes, flashlights and headlamps.

July is shaping up to be a busy month for the group. It not only has its major fundraiser, but must send someone to the borough assembly's July 24 meeting to advocate for a playground site on borough land. Former borough community development director Ron Swanson favors a site near the Talkeetna Library.

Smith, who met with the group last month, now lives in Washington State. He has been a preschool teacher and child care provider, according to the firm's Web site. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Evergreen State College, focusing on ecological design. He has worked with the firm since 2004.

Planet Earth Playscapes is part of a partnership that recently created playscapes in Chinese orphanages, and has erected playgrounds and play spaces for universities, cities and one Cherokee tribal council.

The emphasis for Planet Earth Playscapes designs is to use natural elements and landscaping to create areas where children can interact with nature, Smith said. Chemically treated wood products are not part of the firm's designs.

In other business, the committee discussed incorporating into the playground some kind of memorial to the late Jessica Stevens, a Sunshine Clinic physician's assistant, longtime community volunteer and parent of two children who died last month in a Parks Highway collision.

The committee's next meeting is 6 p.m. July 18 at the Talkeetna Public Library.

Contact John R. Moses at 352-2270 or e-mail john.moses@frontiersman.com.