BY KEITH LIPPOLDT
klippoldt@gbtribune.com
The staff at the Great Bend Recreation Center has seen increases in the numbers of participation and spectators for the past year in the fall and winter activities. But the beast that is summer is about to be unleashed with baseball, softball and the swimming pool opening up soon as well as the daily activities GBRC has on its schedule.
At Monday’s GBRC board meeting, staff members told of their Aprils and looked ahead to the summer.
Aquatic/ Marketing / Enrichment Director Megan Hammeke recapped her department’s April activities, mainly the rescheduled Easter Egg Hunts and fireworks, saying what a success these events were. But Hammeke was most excited about the new CPR training aids she has received for training lifeguards.
“I’m very excited to get new manikins,” she said. “The city is splitting the cost with us. These manikins are actually battery powered, and when I turn them on, they will light up as my guards pump. So it actually tells them if their compressions are deep enough. As they pump blood, the lights will light up, light the heart the chest - all the way up to the brain. They can see that they’re pumping and giving breaths directly. When they’re first learning, the clicking of the pushing down of the compression is nice, but I can turn it off so they could know it’s going to be like on a real body doesn’t click and do a metronome for you.
“The manikins will be used all summer during our weekly trainings with the Lifeguards and then again when we host our Lifeguard Certification and Recertification courses.”
The Brayden/BigRed™ Adult CPR Manikin with LED Red Light CPR Feedback features LED lights underneath the skin of the manikin to enhance the CPR training experience and ensure that CPR compression depth, compression rate and recoil are done correctly. This feature provides students with immediate feedback, which allows for quick improvement and more effective life-saving CPR. The LED lights light up underneath the chest of the manikin when the correct compression depth is given. Manufactured by Innosonian and winner of the 2016 iF Design Award for Medicine & Health.
The CPR feedback manikin also features the following functions for basic life support (BLS) training:
• Anatomical landmarks, including the sternum, rib cage, sternal notch and xiphisternum
• Audible feedback (clicker) helps to reinforce the correct compression depth
• Highly realistic chest rise when the student performs correct ventilations
• Oral and nasal passages allow for a realistic nose pinch, required for proper mouth-to-nose ventilations
• Realistic head tilt and chin lift for opening the airway.
Enrichment / Activity Center Director Garet Fitzpatrick said the new restrooms at the Activity Center have been a huge improvement and he has received a lot of compliments from the visitors.
“For May, we have several activities scheduled including trips to Pratt, Kanopolis State Park, the Wetlands Center, Fort Larned, K-State Aerospace and Technology, and then the CSI camp,” he said. “We have a few new programs scheduled. The Stone Lion Puppet Theater out of Kansas City is going to do a two day puppet program where they’ll make puppets and learn about puppets and do the little puppet activities with them. and stuff like that. In the month of June, we’ll be offering stem robotic 3D printing programs. We’re also offering a basic guitar class for fourth through sixth grade. And this is earmarked for the kids that have a guitar, and that’s about all they know. So very basic beginner type guitar classes.”
Sports Director Shane Sandberg updated the board on summer activities that have already begun.
“We’re already on to baseball season,” he said. “The Saturday of Easter weekend, we hosted our first tournament. Had 32 teams out there for a one day tournament. I thought that was a really good turnout. We have a another one coming this weekend, and then starting with that, we have six over the next seven weekends. So we do get a break next weekend and one weekend in June, but we’re hosting two on one weekend. We’re ready for all that chaos and fun that we’re about to have this summer.
“Our baseball season is now started. As of today (Monday), we are starting practice. We are down a few teams from last year. We’re at 39 this year, compared to 46 last year. One of the reasons for that is just some late registration. It’s very hard to anticipate how many teams we can have for each league when everyone wants to sign up two weeks after the deadline. The biggest change for this season will be our Ralph Terry League, for the 13-15 year old boys. When I got that back up and going last year, my end game was to get into the travel league with the Hoisington, Ellinwood, Russell and Ellsworth leagues. They play real baseball in those leagues. They play 90 feet bases, 60 feet- six inches on the pitching, instead of what ours was, 55 and 80 feet. The high school hasn’t had a C-team here for a couple years now. So I think we can continue to try to build this league up that maybe can feed that a little bit better and get some better participation numbers at the high school as well.”
In other action, the board:
• Heard from Executive Director Chris Umphres on hosting a KSHSAA State Baseball Tournament at the Great Bend Sports Complex.
“We lost the KCAC Tournament but KSHSAA selected Great Bend to host the 2-1A tournament again,” Umphres said. “So this is kind of our one big tournament that we come together as a group and and host for them. We’re excited about it. We’ve already had the meetings. We’ve got the balls and the banners. Everything’s here now. We just wait to see what teams are showing up. It’s about a week later than what normally happens. Hopefully, we’ll have another good turnout. Obviously, the turf and everything helps with that. So they’re (KSHSAA) always glad we’re able to host 2-1A baseball and we’re happy to have them.”
• Approved the Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance plan for the GBRC staff.
“Basically, health insurance went up 11%,” Umphres said. “It’s actually the lowest it has been since 2022 so, these are pretty good rates for what the trend has been showing here lately. Dental basically stayed the same. And then the advanced insurance for life, it went up under 1% as well. So those two areas stayed the same. It’s just the health went up to the 11%. It’s a very good plan for staff. Obviously, that’s one benefit that we’ve provided over the years, and we have the funds to do that. When we did the budget last year, we moved money from general over to the employee benefit fund, so we’ve got the money to cover that, and that’s what I would recommend.”
Board member Randy Goering made a motion to approve the 2025-2026 renewal for BCBS, dental and life insurance plans as presented. Board member Colleen Newman seconded the motion that passed 4-0. Board member Amanda Staab was absent.
