By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
As the City of Great Bend added a splash pad to the north side of Veterans Memorial Park last spring, the addition caused city officials to move the mud volleyball tournament during Party in the Park to the Great Bend Fairgrounds.
Great Bend Community Coordinator Christina Hayes said attendance for last August’s Party in the Park was down, and moving the location of the mud volleyball tournament takes away approximately 1,000 to 2,000 people from the outdoor festival. Although the city received complaints on the venue change, Hayes said the move was needed to keep the splash pad clean.
"The fear is not during the actual event because I can have somebody sit at the splash pad to make sure no one muddy gets in there," said Hayes. "We prep those mud volleyball courts and they're muddy days prior and muddy after. It's those hours that I would worry about some kid getting muddy and going into the splash pad."
Roughly 30 teams sign up for the mud volleyball tournament, organized by the Great Bend Recreation Commission each year on the second Saturday of August.
Public Lands Director Scott Keeler said the mud pits are also an eyesore year round.
"Everybody loves that event," said Keeler. "The issue is think about the August and September timeframe, that's when it starts cooling down. Then we get the rains. We can never get it dried out to put it back to shape. So basically, we have an eyesore for 364 days of the year for a five-hour event."
During a work session this month, the Great Bend City Council suggested exploring the option of bringing back the mud volleyball tournament to Vets Park. The suggested location would be the lots of land the city owns in the Amber Meadows subdivision, just to the north of the Vets Park walking path. City officials will look into the possibility of creating the mud pits on the vacant lots near Foxglove Circle.