Tasha Nielsen West, trail technician at Gypsum City, is spearheading a project to construct a playscape for kids in the campground area of the park.

“This is a very family-oriented sport and kids normally ride too, so we want to make this a destination spot as well,” she said. “Since we have the fishing ponds and the little kid track up front, we just wanted something else for the kids to do.”

In 2022, when Webster County Conservation was updating its master plan for Gypsum City, she said, they asked visitors about what amenities and developmental ideas they would like to see incorporated in the park. One of the highest rated suggestions was a playground.

West applied for and received a $30,000 grant from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ All-Terrain Vehicle Fund to cover some of the cost of the playscape.

-Image courtesy of RDG Planning and Design
The future playscape at Gypsum City OHV Park will have areas designed with different ages in mind.

“I think they’ve seen this park and how busy it is getting and how family-oriented it is,” West said. “If you come to camp here on a weekend, I bet you more than half of the campground is going to be full of children, and I think the ATV committee realized that.”

In addition to the grant funding, West has collected around $20,000 in private donations, a large portion of which were donated in memory of David McGaughy, who died in March 2022 at the age of 55.

“Dave and I enjoyed riding our side-by-side out at the OHV park,” his widow, Crystal McGaughy, said. “Being out at the OHV park was always an enjoyable time for us. He just always loved the park.”

After Dave McGaughy passed away, his friends wanted to hold a benefit fundraiser for him, and with Crystal McGaughy’s help, they picked four organizations to donate the money toward. She knew she wanted to donate to the OHV park and when she learned that West was collecting donations for a playscape, she wanted to help.

“The camping is gorgeous, but there’s really nothing for kids to do if they’re out there, so playground equipment would be great,” Crystal McGaughy said.

-Image courtesy of RDG Planning and Design
A “log jam” will give kids a place to climb at the future Gypsum City OHV Park playscape.

Webster County Wheelers, a club that used to manage the OHV park, still had some funding in its bank account, so the members decided to donate what was left to the playscape project, West said.

West said the playscape will likely be a multi-phase project and total about $100,000, but she wants to get started with it this fall so that by the time the campground opens in the spring, it will be ready for kids to play.

To help stretch the funding for the project, West is going to do the initial dirt work at the site with the dozer and excavator she uses to maintain the park’s riding trails. Some of the materials for the playscape will be collected from ash trees that had to be removed from John F. Kennedy Memorial Park due to the invasion of the emerald ash borer, as well as large boulders extracted from the trails around the park. There’s also a hollow tree trunk from Kennedy Park that will be incorporated as a climbing tunnel in the Gypsum City playscape.

Designed by RDG Planning and Design, of Des Moines, the playscape has a mining theme, to match the overall theme of the park and the history of the land that the park sits on. An overlook deck that resembles a mine shaft will give visitors a view of the playscape, “log jams” will give kids a place to climb and a dig area will give kids a place to, well, dig.

Different sections of the playscape will be designed for certain age groups in mind — there will be an area set up for toddlers, an area for kids 5-9 years old and an area for kids 9-12 years old.

-Image courtesy of RDG Planning and Design
The future playscape at Gypsum City OHV Park will have areas designed with different ages in mind.

While it may not look like it now, the playscape’s location next to the restroom building will put it in a central location at the campground, West said. The 2022 master plan for the park includes expanding the campground to the other side of the restroom building to sort of mirror the existing campground spaces.

West said that the plan is to break ground on the playscape this fall and for the contractor, Country Landscapes, of Ames, to work on bringing the vision to life over the winter and spring.

Webster County Conservation is still accepting donations for the playscape project. For more information, call 515-576-4258.

-Image courtesy of RDG Planning and Design
The future playscape at Gypsum City OHV Park will have areas designed with different ages in mind.