The Starkville Board of Aldermen accepted a $120,000 grant from the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks to build a skate park at the Starkville Sportsplex.

The skate park will be located along Lynn Lane in the green space near the walking trail and is planned to be completed by the end of the year. Construction during the project should not impact sports events or programs.

The grant was awarded through the Recreational Trails Program, a division of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. The funding will cover 30% of the project cost, with the city contributing $280,000 to cover the remaining 70%, for a total budget of $400,000.

Mayor Lynn Spruill said the city has heard requests for a skate park from residents for years.

“This is one of those things that we have been hearing about over the years, the community asking for this as an option for their parks to have,” Spruill said. “We are very pleased that we were able to get the funding. I think it’s going to certainly have a positive impact. It’s one of those things that you try to do as a city to meet the needs of the residents.”

Local groups have been advocating for a skate park in Starkville.  Public input from young skaters was incorporated into the Parks and Recreation Master Plan, which outlines goals and improvements for Starkville’s park system over the next 10 years.

Cody Burnett, city engineer for Starkville, said the skating community has remained active despite the lack of an official facility.

“There is a really strong contention of folks that skate in the area,” Burnett said. “There have been non-official skate parks in multiple places. It’s something that people are very much interested in and want to see. I think that having a place dedicated to that use is really special because if you don’t have that, they have to go find somewhere else to do it.”

Community members have also contributed financially to the effort.

Laura Dunn, a Starkville resident and academic coordinator at Mississippi State University, and her family frequented the skate park in Tupelo during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her two sons were in fifth grade and second grade, and her daughter was four. She talked about the sense of community that her family felt at the skate park.

Dunn said the environment fostered encouragement and connection among skaters of all ages.

“At one point, my second grader flew off one of the jumps and almost landed it, but fell at the very last second,” Dunn said. “This older teenager was like, ‘Man, that was awesome, did you see the air that you got? It really built him up. It was so cool to see these people all supporting [each other]. Never did I see somebody laugh at somebody. It was a great way for people from all kinds of different backgrounds to be able to have a cool experience.”

Inspired by those experiences, her two boys, then in second and fifth grade, raised about $18,000 to donate to the Starkville City Government to help fund a future skate park by creating donation boxes downtown and an online donation option. The money raised is now being used to fund the upcoming skate park.

Dunn said she believes the skate park will offer benefits beyond recreation.

“Nowadays, how many kids are playing video games? How many people don’t know how to interact, how to support one another? That’s how you build community, through things like that,” Dunn said. “[At the skate park] I saw kids that were three years old on scooters at the skate park, and I saw people that were in their twenties and older. I’m excited about that being in Starkville.”

While a conceptual design was submitted as part of the grant application, city officials emphasized that it does not represent the final layout.

The proposed design includes skating elements such as flat rails, stairs, shade structures, handrails and hubba ledges. The official design of the skate park will be decided at an interest meeting that will be held later in the spring, in late May. This meeting opens the park’s design to public suggestions and the official designer’s input.

“We will have a public input session that will notify the public where the skaters and whoever else can come give their input,” Burnett said. “We will take that with the designer and come up with the final design that way. It will be top-notch. The intent is that it’s designed for the best of the best, and the beginners as well.”