Area students benefit from busing program

By Mary Lou Hinrichsen
Herald Staff Writer

June 17, 2009 11:36 am

— GRAND MOUND —A total of 1,151 students from seven school districts benefited from the Clinton County Conservation Foundation’s Scholarships for Busing program during this year’s spring semester, according to Marty Murrell, treasurer of the foundation.
Thirty-one buses from several Clinton schools, Calamus-Wheatland, Central DeWitt, Lost Nation, Northeast, Preston and St. Joseph’s in DeWitt transported the students to Eden Valley, Rock Creek, Malone Park, Soaring Eagle Nature Center and the Wapsi Center.
Included were 225 students from the Clinton High School biology classes, who traveled in five buses to the Wapsi Environmental Center operated jointly by Scott and Clinton counties.
The transportation scholarship program was initiated by the foundation after it became known that many school districts were reducing or eliminating field trips because of budget constraints.
The foundation’s board originally put up $1,600 to pay $2 per mile, round trip, with a minimum of $20 and a maximum of $100 per bus per trip. When the $1,600 was used up, the board added more money, until $2,364 was awarded, according to Murrell.
“We got a lot of responses from teachers and schools, saying that a lot of those trips wouldn’t have been possible without that money,” said Walt Wickham, executive director of the Clinton County Conservation Board.
Wickham also expressed thanks to volunteers who are saving the parks substantial amounts of money. He mentioned especially the volunteers who are laying block for a shower house at Walnut Grove Park near Toronto.
“They are doing a great job and saving us a ton of money,” Wickham said. “Then we have some more volunteers who are going to put a roof on it. We’ve spent about $35,000 on it and it’s going to be an $80,000 to $100,000 shower house when it’s done.
“All we had there was a pit toilet. We put in some electric camp sites a couple of years ago and now have about a dozen, plus another dozen primitive sites.”
The park is on the banks of the Wapsi River, has a boat ramp, a picnic shelter and playground equipment.
“The playground equipment had a lot of silt which had been deposited by last years Wapsi flood waters and then solidified,” Wickham said, “but that’s all been dug out and the pea gravel was used to fill a large hole which had been washed out in the back of the park.”
Stream bank erosion problems at Eden Valley Park have now been rip rapped and the road at Sherman Park has been rerocked, Wickham said.
“The lower areas of Sherman Park are still wet, but we hope to have it open for campers for the 4th of July,” Wickham said.