Editor's Note: The following article has been corrected from it's original printing in the Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008 edition of the Frontiersman. Anita Golton, not Bolton, provided the corrections. The Mat-Su Borough's role in the Talkeetna Community Playground Project is strictly site approval, not funding. The playground committee is relying solely on fundraising efforts to support the cost of construction.

TALKEETNA �” The children of Talkeetna finally can see their new fully equipped playground �” on paper.

Leathers and Associates, a New York architectural firm that specializes in custom playgrounds, has presented its blueprint designs of the proposed $150,000 playground that includes suggestions from the community. Anita Golton, Talkeetna resident and organizer for the Talkeetna Community Playground Project Committee, said area residents are ecstatic about the effort.

“We are going to build this playground,” Golton said. “We will do our absolute best to get it done. We want to make sure the playground is built while our kids are still young enough to enjoy it.”

So far, $65,000 has been raised through efforts within the community for the playground’s construction. More strenuous efforts are in the works to raise the more than $100,000 still needed.

Leathers and Associates designers drafted the 90-by-90-foot playground infrastructure, including unique features such as a castle equipped with numerous slides, all-ages swings, a sand pit, a toddler area, bouncy bridges, a tire climber, sand pit, benches and balance beams, an old Volkswagen bus and a Bush plane, train and boat.

While Leathers and Associates has been designing the playground, Leon Smith of Planet Earth Playscapes has been working on the outlying forest areas of the project, adding natural environment elements. Smith’s conceptual sketches show features including a living hut, climbing boulders, a wooded labyrinth, grassy mounds used for sliding, forest pathways and a willow lodge.

Smith, who grew up in Talkeetna, remembers how nature contributes much to neighborhood entertainment. He said his job is to make sure the playground possesses that Talkeetna-like appeal.

“My approach is trying to connect kids with the natural environment,” Smith said. “When I grew up in Talkeetna, we played down by the river, climbed on the big rocks and hung out by the river. I wanted a public space where kids can have access to that natural environment that I had.”

In keeping with the playground’s local appeal, Talkeetna artists have been recruited to add their own flair to the project.

Smith will return to Talkeetna in late March to complete site surveying, mark up trees to be cut and others to be saved in the periphery of the playground.

“I’ll be trying to absorb as much information as I can,” he said. “I’ll be hunting down natural materials, like logs and boulders, as well as meeting with the Talkeetna playground committee to show them the final conceptual sketches.”

The construction phase for both concepts is scheduled to begin June 4.

Next up for Golton and the Talkeetna Community Playground Project committee will be working with the Mat-Su Borough for site approval. The committee are also waiting for word back from the Assembly on approval of a Public Facilities study done by Land Design North, which outlines how different Borough land parcels in Talkeetna will be used in the future.

The committee is raising all the funds for construction through grants, fundraising events, and business and individual donations.

“We’ve been going through the whole Borough process, filling out the paperwork and waiting back for word from the assembly,” Golton said.

Golton said overall fundraising efforts will go to the full construction of the playground, including a Department of Transportation approved paved driveway, parking lot, portable toilets, periphery fencing and other infrastructures. She also said $45,000 in grant applications to the Rasmuson Foundation and the Mat-Su Health Foundation are pending.

Contact J.J. Harrier at valleylife@frontiersman.com or� � � � � � � � � � � �  352-2269.