Honor Garden under way

Volunteers from Anchorage-based Nabors Alaska Drilling Inc. came to Wasilla on Tuesday to work on landscaping for the Armed Forces Honor Garden project. About a dozen Nabors employees from the company's engineering department and Anchorage construction yard joined city of Wasilla parks and recreation workers and inmates from the Point MacKenzie Rehabilitation Center to work on the project located at the east end of Iditapark.

The volunteers spent the day planting shrubs, preparing topsoil for seeding and smoothing a gravel pad that will be the subsurface of the honor garden's brick walkway.

The Nabors employees, who normally spend time refurbishing oil-field modules or doing engineering design work, were pleased with what they were able to accomplish.

"For a half a day, we've been pretty lucky actually. We've been pretty productive. So far we've spread three truckloads of D-1," said Wayne Rust, engineering manager for Nabors. D-1, Rust explained, is gravel crushed to certain specifications for excavation jobs, such as road beds and foundations. D-1 is made up of small rocks with sharp edges to build a stable foundation.

"If they're all rounded then they would all roll around underneath [the road or structure]," Rust said.

Iditapark is built on the former location of the Wasilla airport and began in the late 1990s with the construction of Wonderland Park, the children's playground on the park strip's west end. Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin said volunteerism has driven the park's development and helped the city afford more amenities to the park each year.

"Fiscally, it's been thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of volunteerism over there -- there's no way to put a price tag on it," Palin said. Over the years, church groups, school classes, boy scouts, unions and private companies have chipped in to build Iditapark.

Wasilla city council member Judy Patrick introduced Nabors' management to the Honor Garden project.

"To their credit, [Nabors was] looking for a community project in the Valley, because they recognize that they have a lot of employees who live out here," Patrick said. "… When I told them about the honor garden, they didn't hesitate at all."

Nabors senior design draftsman Joe Alston got his first look at Iditapark Tuesday morning by driving around the park before picking up a shovel at the Honor Garden site.

"We got the chance to see some of the improvements. I'm surprised that this used to be an old airstrip," Alston said.

The honor garden will have a dedication on Independence Day during the city-sponsored picnic. The picnic takes place on the parade ground next to the honor garden and is immediately following the parade through the streets of Wasilla which starts at noon.