For the week of July 2 - 8, 2003

Good neighbors
make good grass

Elkhorn Golf Club helps restore school field

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By GREGORY FOLEY
Express Staff Writer

When Chris Key, grounds maintenance manager of The Community School’s Sagewillow campus in Elkhorn, was faced last month with restoring an ice-damaged soccer pitch to a field of green, he decided to seek some outside advice.

Gerry Pemberton, a maintenance employee for the Elkhorn Golf Club, last week drives a Toro Rake-o-vac over the upper soccer field at The Community School’s Sagewillow campus. The specialized ground-preparation machine is used to slice the earth to prepare it for reseeding with grass. Express photos by Willy Cook

Key soon noticed that his neighbor, the Elkhorn Golf Club, had quickly and successfully restored 14 ice-damaged greens at the course during the late spring.

After going to talk to the maintenance crew of the golf course—which this year is under new management by Arizona-based Troon Golf—Key got an offer he couldn’t believe. Don Shirey, general manager for Troon of the Elkhorn Golf Club, offered to send his maintenance supervisors and the club’s state-of-the-art lawn-cultivation equipment to the Sagewillow campus for a day to do a complete overhaul of the damaged upper soccer field.

Key enthusiastically accepted the offer and arranged to have a team of three grounds-keeping specialists come to Sagewillow last Friday, June 27.

"It was a monumentally generous offer," Key said. "They were talking about just lending out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment."

Chris Key, grounds maintenance manager for The Community School’s Sagewillow campus in Elkhorn, works on a test spot before reseeding and fertilizing the school’s upper soccer field. The field was seriously damaged last winter by ice and frost. Express photos by Willy Cook

The upper field, located to the north of the Sagewillow Barn, suffered extensive damage last winter, mostly in low-lying areas, where moisture collects and freezes. The phenomenon in colder areas causes grass tissue to expand and die.

Last Friday, Elkhorn Golf Club Superintendent Brian Heywood and two workers volunteered their services for the entire day to treat the field with special machinery. Afterward, they top dressed the area with about 75 pounds of grass seed mixed with copious amount of sandy material.

Brian Heywood, superintendent of the Elkhorn Golf Course, assesses damage to the upper soccer field at the Sagewillow property in Elkhorn. Heywood and a team of maintenance workers volunteered their services and equipment to The Community School last week to restore the damaged field. Express photos by Willy Cook

With the first soccer game at the field scheduled for Aug. 18, Key said he would have been hard pressed to get the project completed without the help of the golf course staff. "If it was to wait another week, it would be pushing the envelope," he said.

Shirey said he was pleased to help the school get the field ready for soccer season. "We’re here for each other. Not to stand alone," he said. "We’re all part of the same community."

 

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