Stephenville Parks & Recreation — Attraction in Stephenville

We attended a Christmas holiday dance recital at the Stephenville Community Center in early December to watch our granddaughter in various dancing and singing sets. There are very talented young children in this dance and singing program!

The Community Center is very old, likely built in the 1940s or early 50s, consequently handicapped accessibly is an afterthought. Handicapped parking spaces are limited to ONE! At both shows I counted at least 5 of us in wheelchairs! Because THE handicapped parking space was already filled, my husband dropped me off at the only ramp from the parking lot and parked the car.

The ramp into the building is very steep and narrow. The space at the door is very narrow at the top of many steep steps. One mistake turning to adjust getting into the building with a wheelchair would be disastrous! A tumble down those steps is just waiting to happen. The same problem exists for children in strollers!

The entrance accessible to wheelchairs and strollers is through the front door where the office is. Other patrons to the programs or basketball or volleyball games is through the side door near the few parking spaces.

Inside the transition from the hallway into the auditorium has a two-inch lip and is a problem for wheelchairs and strollers.

The handicapped accessible woman's restroom is through an outside entrance, therefore a person in a wheelchair must navigate the hallway, the front door aggravation, and the steep ramp to get to the outside sidewalk leading to the handicapped accessible restrooms!! Fortunately, it was not raining!

After going up the more appropriately inclined ramp into the side of the building, the women's restroom is down a very long narrow hallway. Once inside, the handicapped stall was LOCKED! Fortunately, a young son of a parent was able to crawl under the door and unlock it! Thankfully there was a kind and sweet young boy to do that for me!!

The transfer bars are appropriately installed and useful. The stall space is not large enough for my wheelchair to fit to close the door for privacy and protection. If I used a battery powered wheelchair it's likely that I could not have used the restroom.

The facility has been remodeled to make attending programs minimally accessible and possible. So it worked out to attend the Christmas program.

The VERY SAD thing is that a bond issue to build a modern Community Center with expanded community purpose and uses, including appropriate parking for all, was defeated just 5 months ago by the residents of Stephenville. How shortsighted and lacking in community vision.

I hope the city brings forward another bond issue soon to build a modern community center. It will benefit the entire community to have a facility where many and varied programs from holiday concerts and children's events to sports activities are available, convenient,...

The playground is well-equipped, the grounds are clean, and the grass is always mowed nicely. It would be nice if they had restrooms year-round, and more of them available. The upgrades are coming along nicely, and I like what they did with the younger children's area. I'd also like to see some water fountains or dog watering stations. But that's just me being picky. It's always a nice time when we go. Good job,...

I love taking my kids to play at the park! They like to ride their scooters down the walking trail. The playground near the rev center is very shaded with trees and makes it nice for moms and dads to watch without being scorched by the sun. The walking trail is long and goes along the Bosque River and we actually saw a fawn and babies yesterday when we were there at about 7:30pm. The...