Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome
at the time now for community connection right here on Kay one. The one
you trust and no stranger to our show is that Ken Stroman and Ken you
always bring friends, yes always? Who do we have here today? Who's
this fine looking gentleman here? Well, let me produce Ken Johnson, Bartlesville
native, ye resident of Houston today. But Ken is a long time as
has a long history with Kitty parka and he serves as the as the board
chair or friends of the Kitty Park. All right, Well, we got
a lot going on with Kitty Park, like a kind of almost like a
rebamp here. Bean. We've been around a long time, but we're getting
more than just a fresh code of paint, aren't we. That's correct.
This will be our seventy sixth year and operation, and we are completely trying
to refurbish the park. We're looking at everything we do there at the park
from the rides, make sure everything is up and running and I can save
for this year. Every ride is running for a change, even the even
the Avenger ride that has been down for four or five years. We totally
rebuilt that over the winter. Wayne Clark and Randy Inlo was there daily working
on that ride, and we've got it up and running again. The chariots
are running, and we're going to add a new ride this year. We
actually had a donation, so we're adding a new roller coaster this year.
Hopefully it'll be in operation this year, but we're working on that. Okay,
we've got that going out, understand but we've got a little bit extra
land to work with too. Absolutely, we were able to negotiate a new
long term lease with the city to make sure we're around for many years to
come. And also we were able to get the land just north of the
current park, so that's where we are going to be putting the new roller
coaster and some additional rides as we go on farther down the road. Now
we're going with generic additional rides right now. We're not going to get into
specifics, are we not. Right now, we do. We did name
that the new roller coaster. It is called the Dragon Coaster. It's a
it's a kiddie ride still, but it is big enough for the parents to
ride with their children as well. So that's what we're trying to add to
that section of the park. What we call family friendly rides, something that's
still in the Kittie Park theme but is still big enough that some older kids
and the parents will be able to ride with them. I understand we've been
working on the boats and things. Absolutely, I'm glad you ask about that.
We had a generous donation. We tore out the old boat pool.
We've got the new boat pool put in now. We still need to put
the leable tech, which is the coding on it. That should happen this
week. We put new rod iron fencing around it last night or yesterday actually,
and it is ready to rock and roll. Wow. You know you
had the nice little downtown cookout a few weeks ago. One of our young
reporters game down. He says, they're really nice people. They gave me
a hamburger and everything. Welcome to Bartlesfeld. Kind of happens that way.
But Kitty Park is even a lot more special here because this has so many
different connection points with so many different people. Whether you've been here a few
years or maybe many generations. It's touched a lot of generations, right.
You know. One of the things that we pride ourselves on is family entertainment.
You know, at a low cost, so we try to keep everything
down. We are a nonprofit organization, we're independent, we're autonomous with the
city, so we don't get any funding from the city whatsoever. So we've
survived on uh, what we take in from the rides in the concession and
generous donations from the public to help us keep the cost low. Well,
that is great, that is great. Speaking across, what's the cost per
ride, it's seventy five cents. Uh, every every ride is seventy five
cents, with the exception of the miniature golf and that's two tickets, so
it'd be a dollar fifty for the nine holes amendatry Golf and then there's one
other exception. Yeah, the last train ride of the night is always free.
Ring the bell kids that it's gonna be a lot of fun. You
mentioned bell speak speaking of bell um. Several years ago, the bells were
removed from the boats. When we were cleaning out the some of the storage
there, we found one of the old bells of the boats. So we
went down Tulsa to accu cast and Tom Frey down in Telsa and he recast
all of the bells for us for the boats. So this year the bells
will be back on the boats. Nice touch, hey Ken. One of
the questions that I get when people hear about the new roller coach, they
no, you're not going to take out the Little Dipper, are you?
Absolutely not. We're adding to the park, we're not taking away. So
one of the things about the park is nostalgia, you know it is.
It's one of the very few older amusement parks around that has some of the
older rides. We are planning on keeping all those, keeping them running and
letting everybody have a good time. Well, that's great, this is really
something else. Now. If folks want to help out in other ways,
we already have that very nice, sizeable couple of contributions earlier this year,
I think maybe late last year. But if folks you know that you've got
a couple of thousand dollars just sitting in your wallet you don't know what to
do with them, you can invest in Kiddy Park, can't you. Absolutely?
Absolutely. We're always looking for for some help. You could go to
our website at www dot Kitty Park dot net and there's a place for a
donation on there, or you can contact there our Facebook page and just send
us a chat and we'll be happy to get in touch with you very good.
Now, can other organizations partner with Kitty Park, you know, like
see like have a special day there? Yeah, we have, Actually we
do have special events. H one. I'll really well. Opening day is
May fifth, okay, and we'll be open from six thirty to nine o'clock
two and a half weeks from Yeah, and we'll be open on We'll be
open on Fridays and Saturdays until school's out, and then when school's out,
we will open Tuesday through Saturday. However, for the very first time,
on May twenty second, we're having a special needs night for the kids.
It's not open to the general public. It's open to families with special needs.
That's on a Monday night. If it's not open, that's not one
of the days we're normally open, but this is the first one we're having.
We think that every child in the city of the Bartlesville and the surrounding
community should have an opportunity to enjoy the park, so we're we're opening that
up for special needs kids and families on May twenty second, from six to
eight o'clock. We're not open full time then, but bring your kids out,
it'll be a lot slower paced, they won't have to worry about you
know, standing in lines, long lines with everybody else. Is for them
to enjoy the park, that is really special. I knew that that was
one of the things that we're gon we're gonna say special attention to, and
I'm glad we're doing that. Well, Tom, I gotta tell you that
Ken has just a huge heart for people with different needs. And in fact,
Ken talked a little bit about one of the areas of focus as we're
revamping and adding rides. Well, actually, this afternoon, I have a
focus group of moms with special need children that are coming down and we're going
to walk the park with myself and Wayne Clark, the park manager, and
we're going to go through and get a perspective from the parents' eyes. You
know, what do they see as a danger to their kid? What can
we do at the park to help the special need children enjoy the park,
you know, be wider gates, slower rides, whatever we can do to
help these children enjoy the park. We're going to start focusing on that.
Now. We won't have everything done overnight, obviously, but we will then
build us a list that we can go through and start knocking things off to
improve the park for some of the special needs kids. Well that's great.
You know. Well, Ken, you've shared a story really practical with one
of the rides, a child who watched his brother ride and he hasn't been
able. Do you mind sharing some of that. Well, when I was
down to the park to start with, I live in Houston, was born
and raised in Bartlesville, but I live in Houston. A couple of years
ago they asked me to come back and help on the board, to have
a fresh set of eyes of what's going on there at the park. And
so I come up every once in a while when the park's open and watch.
And one thing I saw one night was I saw a child in a
wheelchair watching his brother ride the roller coaster and just mama, want to ride,
Mama want to ride. We didn't have what the mother would consider a
safety restraint or what her to be able to put their child on the ride.
She was afraid that they would fly out or stand up for whatever.
So we're looking at some harness type things that will not restrict the child but
just ensure their safety. That's great, that's gonna you know that's gonna be
a big important point to be brought up with another thing I think it's really
important that it's easy to overlook, and that is the youth development aspect of
Kitty Park, which frankly is a big part of your story. Yeah,
I've got I've got like a four pronged approach with a Kitty Park. I
started into Kitty Park when I was fourteen years old, running the rides.
After a couple of years, I guess, for whatever reason, they decided
to let me be assistant manager down there when I was, I guess a
senior in high school. Yeah, I was a senior in high school,
and a couple of years after when I was in college, come back running
park. So that was riding the rides when I was young, starting when
I was fourteen, managing the park, helping manage the park when I was
a teenager, and then coming back on the board now. So yeah,
and we're gonna have some other special events during the year here other than Special
Needs Night. On UM June tenth, we have First Responders That's always been
a big night. It's always been a big night for us. July eighth,
we have Veterans Night and then in August, we haven't fig finalized that
date, but we're going to have an antique car show and uh oh,
goodies night, old and old and goodies night for a DJ being out there
playing some of the old hits and stuff, so it'll be it'll be a
fun night for everybody. And then we are still working on bringing some more
entertainment in when we can to fit it in. Very good. Is there
anything we've missed, Well, there's a lot going on. Well, I'm
sure we've missed something. I'm sure we've missed something, and we'll be back,
right, we'll be back. You bet to be back because folks want
to know more. Yeah, I'm up here a couple of times a month
trying to make sure everything's getting done. And we've got a great staff down
there, great board that's working hard to get the park ready for everybody.
I want to thank you both for being a part of our show here today
on our community connection. Gentlemen, don't be strangers, all right, All
right, We've got more coming up right now.