I am a thirty-two year old father of three boys and one girl. They are getting to the age where they are interested in many activities. For instance, skateboarding.

Which I think is great. It is something that my friends and I enjoyed when we were their age. So, I heard about a committee for the Batesville Skate Park. And I just had to join it. The parents in our committee are outgoing men and women and many anxious kids. Which drives us parents that much more to try and think of fund raising ideas to build the kids  a skate park.

I will try to give you an idea of what we as parents don’t want today’s youth to go through.

Back in our younger days of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s we didn’t have much to do as kids in this town. But a couple of things were available to us. We had the Eureka Movie Theater, then we had…well…that’s about it for awhile.

 Growing up with nothing to occupy our time kids with nothing to do tend to get really bored. But, the truth is, all we really needed were our friends to hang out with, skate with, ride bikes, or go swimming.

The older we got it just seemed to get a little old being run off from everywhere in town because you were skateboarding in front of stores or in streets or just hanging out practicing tricks and trying to find something to do. Basically in the end there was not much for us to do.

 Now, back to us having nothing really to ever do….kids do stupid things.  Like, hanging out with the wrong crowd instead of having something productive to do. We’d hang out on the tailgates of our trucks on the square on weekends sneaking smoking and drinking thinking its cool.

We thought, “what do we know, it’s not like we could run down to the local bowling alley or arcade.” So we just did what there was for us to do…basically nothing. And that only lasts for so long. Like any kid, we grew up and made mistakes somewhere down the line. We know that drugs or alcohol can and has destroyed lives of many people including some very close to us. I am not pointing any fingers or putting any blame on anyone. But in my heart I believe that the kids these days need more productive  things to do in this town. I mean this is the home of “them South Panola Tigers!” And we are proud of each  of those kids and hope for the best in their future.

But who’s to say that five years from now Batesville could also be known for the next pro skater from right here in Tiger Country!

This town has become famous for our talented youth in sports, music, art, and drama. So why not add a few pro skaters to that impressive list?

Parents, I’m very into all these kids trying to help raise money to help build our skate park. They try so hard at our meetings to think of ways to raise money and to help build it. To see that gleam in those kids eyes is something special that we all know should never fade. So, parent-to-parent, and to all the great citizens of Panola County, thank you for your support. We at the Batesville Skate Park Committee hope that you will support us in what we are trying to do for the youth of Batesville.

 /s/Samuel “Bubba”  Lucas