When summer sizzles in Centre County, with temperatures climbing into the upper 80s and 90s, one of the go-to places to beat the heat is the local swimming pool.
Residents in each of the school districts in the county have nearby community pools, but a closer look reveals a sharp contrast between the pools in the State College area and those serving the Bellefonte, Bald Eagle and Penns Valley areas.
The Welch and Park Forest community pools in the Centre Region underwent significant renovations about a decade ago and offer spiral slides, splash pads for children, and other water features.
In the other areas of the county, the pools are in a completely different state. In Bellefonte, Kepler Pool is closed for the season again amid a multimillion-dollar renovation project. The pools in Snow Shoe and Millheim are doing what they can to remain a community tradition, relying on fundraising and donations to help pay for their operations.
Here is a look at the state of Centre County’s community pools.
Kepler Pool
This year is the “make or break year” for Robert Kepler Memorial Pool for a couple of reasons, says Chris Haak, chairman of the Nittany Valley Joint Recreation Authority, which owns the pool and property on the grounds of Governors Park.
The pool is closed for the second straight summer as the authority eyes major renovations to replace infrastructure that is 50 years old and the addition of a children’s wading area. The closure leaves Bellefonte residents with the choice: forgo swimming in the local area for the second summer in a row or drive to State College or Snow Shoe, the closest community pools.
If the Bellefonte area goes without its pool for much longer, Haak doesn’t expect the community to wait for it to return.
“The pool itself doesn’t really meet the current expectations of a local community pool in its current state, if it were open,” he says. “Communities will start finding things for their time. If you go so long, it does go out of sight, out of mind.”
Haak says authority members are hoping they receive state grants so they can restart the project after it was derailed last year.
The authority had budgeted $700,000 for work on the main pool and a new children’s wading pool, but the lowest bid was well over that figure, at $1.8 million. And that was for construction and electrical only, Haak says, and did not include amenities that visitors want, like a spiral water slide.
“It was really a kick in the gut,” he says. “It’s not just a matter of replacing pumps to keep the water circulating. We want to improve the property overall.”
Authority members have redoubled their efforts. In addition to the state grant applications, they are seeking donations from the community and businesses. They have also reset their expectations, as the budget is now $1.6 million for the first phase of work. They have the $700,000 that was the first amount budgeted, and that includes $75,000 in corporate donations from Graymont, Jersey Shore State Bank, and Northwest Bank.
“We’re confident that even if we’re not wildly successful with the grants, we think we’ll be able to secure donations, at a minimum, to fund phase one,” Haak says.
He says the authority expects to find out if they will receive grant money starting later this summer. He hopes to move forward with the pool design in the coming months, put out a call for bids by the end of 2022 and start the first phase of construction next spring.
“Our goal is to have a partial swimming season next year—hopefully get the pool filled and inspected and at least enjoy a few weeks in the pool,” he says.
The second phase would include renovating the bathhouse and installing a children’s pool with features like a walk-in entry and a lounge area for parents.
Haak says the original pool was built thanks to a large fundraising campaign in the late 1960s and early ’70s.
“The community has risen to the occasion before,” he says. “We’re 100% confident the community will do the same thing, both financially and through volunteerism.”
Mountaintop Pool
While the Mountaintop Pool in Snow Shoe could use a new paint job and some other upgrades, the Olympic-size pool serves a great summertime need in this community in the Bald Eagle Area School District.
The pool is open from noon to 6 p.m. most days and may stay open later on especially hot ones. Local teenagers serve as lifeguards, several daycares bring children for weekly excursions, and the Bellefonte YMCA swim team is competing here because its home, the Kepler Pool, is closed.
The facility features the main pool, a children’s pool, and a concession stand. “We have a very nice facility for our children,” says Jennifer Nastase, president of the Mountaintop Area Pool Association.
In the early 2010s, the pool underwent much-needed maintenance and renovations. The local community helped raise the money needed to make the improvements, which included a seam replacement and decking, and keep the pool a summertime tradition.
These days, Nastase says, the pool could use more improvements, but she is grateful to have what they have.
She ticked off her wish list: an upgrade to the concession stand and a bigger freezer, repainting the pool, and adding a heater, new lounge chairs, and a shed. A volleyball court would be great, too, she says, referencing the success of the BEA High School girls team at the district and state levels.
The pool is also facing higher operational costs. Nastase says they’ll pay $1,500 to $2,000 more for liquid chlorine alone this season. They’re paying lifeguards a higher hourly rate than last year, and the YMCA certificate the pool pays for lifeguards went up by $50 per person.
In the meantime, they are holding fundraisers to bring in money and keep the pool’s name front and center in the community. They had a milkshake booth at the Snow Shoe Carnival in June, and they sold hoagie cards.
At the end of the day, it comes back to one thing: “The reason we do what we do here is for the kids,” Nastase says.
Welch & Park Forest pools
So far in 2022, the two pools in the Centre Region seem to have rebounded from the past two summers that were impacted significantly by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2020 summer season opening of William L. Welch Community Pool and Park Forest Community Pool was delayed, and when the pools did open, capacity was first limited to 50% and later expanded to 75%. The 2021 season opened with a 75% capacity limit that eventually expanded to full capacity.
“A year or two ago, even with hot days, there was still enough COVID hesitancy” to impact attendance, says Todd Roth, supervisor of aquatics for Centre Region Parks & Recreation, which runs the two pools.
Now, during the third summer of the pandemic, enrollment in swim lessons and group activities is strong.
“A lot of the public concern seems to have vanished or at least significantly decreased. A lot of public perception was that the pool is a safe place to go,” he says.
The two facilities are equipped with competition pools and children’s aquatics areas—including water slides—after major renovations in 2008 to 2011.
The pools’ infrastructure is now more than a decade old and not brand new anymore, he says, meaning items will need to be replaced. For instance, work has started on replacing some of the main pool pumping and filtration equipment. And 10 years of sun and ultraviolet rays have faded the spiral slides to the point that crews sanded them down and repainted them in May before the pools opened for the season.
Roth says the cost of pool passes increased this year from last year. He expects the daily admission rates to increase in 2023. This year, the daily admission structure is $8 for children ages 3 to 10 and $10 for children 11 and older and adults; rates are $2 higher for people who do not live in the Centre Region.
The swimming season will end with two events, a youth triathlon at Welch and a dog swim at Park Forest in September. Roth calls the latter an “unbridled day of joy” for dogs.
Millheim Pool
A few hundred people attended the Millheim Pool’s splash bash on June 6, the last day of school in the Penns Valley Area School District. Admission was free, there was a DJ, and the children could get a free lunch from the Millheim Lions food trailer.
“We had the most amazing day,” says Colleen Swetland, president of Penns Valley Parks and Recreation, the organization that manages the pool. “It rivaled what it was when I was a kid. It was so exciting to see the pool being used like that.”
Like the organizations that run the other community pools, Swetland’s group is devoted to keeping the pool running while facing the challenges of maintaining a facility that’s more than 50 years old.
She says the pool has gone through times when it was in a state of disrepair or wasn’t used by the community. It was closed in 2020 because of the pandemic, and it opened late last year, toward the end of June, due to prep work needed to reopen.
Swetland praises the community for its support that helped the pool open on time this year. For instance, a business reduced its price by half for the sand to fill the volleyball court on the pool and park property. A family donated slats to help fill in a chain-link fence that the pool’s insurance company said was no longer compliant with its policy.
“Businesses have donated supplies or donated money, and we have individuals who have done the same,” Swetland says. “The community support this spring has been nothing short of amazing.”
She says it has been tough, though, keeping up with a pool that, at 51 years old, is showing its age. Every year, they have to patch the fiberglass that covers the pool’s concrete bottom and sides. Modern pools aren’t made that way, and the organization can’t find a company that does that work. They couldn’t get paint to make the patches this year, so they had to improvise, and the patches literally look like patchwork.
The baby pool remains closed because it doesn’t retain water, and the filtration system will need repairing. The organization so far has $15,000 in community donations earmarked for the work.
Swetland says she hopes the popularity of the splash bash is an indicator of how the pool is returning to the hearts and minds of the community. That’s how it was when she was a kid and rode her bike from her home in Aaronsburg to the pool every day in the summer.
“It was a huge part of my childhood,” she says. “It’s the good memories from our childhood that we’re trying to recreate for families now.” T&G
Mike Dawson is a freelance writer who lives in College Township. This story appears in the July 2022 issue of Town&Gown.
