District aiming for new bathhouse.

Byline: MARK BAKER The Register-Guard

DRAIN - Nora Bing lines them up, a sixth-grade class from North Douglas Middle School, and readies them for an hour of physical education.

In the sun. In a swimming pool.

But first, the 20 or so boys and girls must sing.

Swimming, swimming, in the swimming pool.

When days are hot, when days are cold

In the swimming pool.

Breast stroke, side stroke, fancy diving, too.

What fun it is to swim all day, in the swimming pool.

Especially after getting out of the bathhouse.

For more than a half-century, North Douglas School District students have been using the pool, which was built along with the bathhouse in 1948 as the North Douglas Living War Memorial. It not only served to honor those who had fought in World War II, but also gave the community a recreation facility.

Now the North Douglas Parks and Recreation District, established in 1991 to manage the pool, is seeking funding to renovate the aging bathhouse. The current one is in severe disrepair and full of dry rot. The shower walls in both the boys' and girls' dressing rooms are falling apart.

Plans are in place for a new bathhouse, which is expected to cost $265,000. About $170,000 has been raised but about another $100,000 is needed.

"We'd like to assure the building is here another 55 years," said Bing, aquatics director for the parks and recreation district. "There's really nothing for kids to do here besides this in the summertime."

The pool is open from early May until the end of September, and the school district uses it for physical education classes at the end and beginning of each school year. In the summertime, it's the place to be.

Adults also use it for lap swimming and water aerobics classes.

"It's served the community well, but something new is needed," said Jeff Davis, a P.E. teacher at the middle school and at North Douglas High School.

The largest donation so far, $125,000, has come from Mildred Whipple, who has lived in Drain since 1932.

"My interest is simply in preserving the past and providing for the future," said Whipple, 92.

She watched 53 years ago as volunteers built the building that is now the pool's bathhouse. Her husband, Jim Whipple, who died in 1979, and his father, who owned the Whipple Mill, donated lumber for the one-story, clapboard building.

Several boys whom Mildred Whipple taught at Drain Union High School went off to fight in the war.

Other donations have come from the Cow Creek Umpqua Indian Foundation ($20,000) and the Oregon Community Foundation ($15,000). Good, old-fashioned fund raising has brought in another $12,000 and the parks and recreation district is trying to get the word out so it can raise the rest.

The district was created by a community vote in the early 1990s, establishing a small property tax base for pool improvements, Bing said. But most of the bathhouse has never been upgraded, she said. It still has its original plumbing and electrical work and no disabled access, she said.

A donor wall will be constructed in the front lobby of the remodeled bathhouse.

Donors will be acknowledged by an aquatic figure inscribed with their name on the wall - whales for larger donations, minnows for smaller ones. The district is asking for a minimum donation of $25.

"We're trying to create recreational opportunities for youth and adults for a city that doesn't have anything," Bing said.

HOW TO HELP

If you would like to make a donation to help pay for a new bathhouse at the North Douglas Parks and Recreation District swimming pool, call 836-7549 or mail it to P.O. Box 14, Drain, OR 97435. Donors are asked to make a minimum contribution of $25.

CAPTION(S):

Aaron Atencio, 8, showers after swimming lessons at the North Douglas Parks and Recreation District's swimming pool in Drain. The community is trying to raise the remaining $100,000 of the $265,000 it needs to renovate the bathhouse, which suffers from rot and outdated electrical and plumbing systems. Aquatics director Nora Bing helps third-graders practice their diving.