The Orcas Island Park and Rec District has been awarded a $5000 matching grant from the United States Tennis Association to refurbish and re-line two of the existing Buck Park tennis courts.

“This grant was just one of a series of dominos that had to fall into place to allow our community to refurbish and reenergize a public tennis program for Orcas,” said rec district board chair Martha Farish. “It took Carl deBoor and the Community Foundation donating the cost of insurance; it took the Port of Orcas’s willingness to loan OIPRD interim funding; it took Attorney Adina Cunningham’s willingness to help us both come to an agreement and it took the school district’s willingness to have OIPRD take the lead on refurbishment of the courts.”

The matching grant, along with interim funding from the Port of Orcas, will allow the courts to be refurbished in August 2011 instead of August 2013, when tax distributions would have allowed the district to do the work. Tennis court construction constraints restrict refurbishment in the Northwest to August, when the weather is hot enough.

The work is scheduled for this week. The commissioners are personally power-washing the courts before the work is done, in order to save money. Upon completion, the courts will be locked and unavailable for four or five days to allow the surfaces to “cure.” At the earliest, they will be open again on Aug. 24. Under grant terms, the work must be done by a U.S. Tennis Association approved contractor.

“The best choice was Mid Pac Construction of Kirkland, Wash. who turned out to have done successful private court work on Orcas in the past,” said Joe Ciskowski, representative of Orcas Tennis Association, which spearheaded the refurbishment campaign this January.

Of the park’s three regulation size courts, two are fenced. The third is an unfenced poured slab to the north of the existing courts, unfinished due to insufficient funds when Buck Park was originally created. The rec district applied for grant monies to finish all three courts, but were not able to garner the funds needed to do so.

The refurbished courts will have an added feature: lining for Quick Start Tennis, a national tennis emphasis by the US Tennis Association that offers smaller regulation court size, easier instruction and tournaments for beginners.

Coach training

Orcas Tennis Association is offering a workshop for coaches,  instructors and parents who work with players of all ages on Weds., Sept. 7 from 12:30 to 7 p.m. at Buck Park tennis court. The cost is $10 per person. To sign up, email Zee Roemer at zr@centurytel.net.  The deadline is Aug. 23.