Miners enlist help from Air Force

PALMER -- The Mat-Su Miners had an army of volunteers, or an Air Force rather.

Sixty airmen from Elmendorf Air Force Base ventured out to Herman Brothers Field Saturday to assist in the clean up and renovation of the Miners' ballpark.

For months Miner general manager Pete Christopher and his staff have been busy at work cleaning up Hermon Brothers Field to get the ballpark ready for opening day in June.

Earlier this spring Elmendorf's Tim Boring approached Christopher about bringing a group of airmen out for a community service project.

The airmen are part of a mandatory senior leadership class. As a final project, each class chose a community service project.

"I knew this project would not only affect the Miners, but the high schools in the area," Boring said. "This is the Air Force's way of paying the community back.

"It has been a while since we have had a project in the Valley," Boring said.

The airmen spent their Saturday mowing, raking, painting and shoveling. The volunteers painted the new Mat-Su dugout, raked out the warning track and cleaned up debris that surrounded the ballpark.