Stamford welcomes new pickleball court thanks to high school senior

STAMFORD, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – Harmon Park in Stamford has everything you need, from a walking trail, a playground area, and now a new pickleball court. Senior Allie Caddell came up with the idea for her senior community project as part of the Ford Scholarship program. She said she saw interest in the sport grow with her peers.

“A lot of my friends had started picking up pickleball. However, they were taping off the high school tennis courts, and with that, they were leaving tape residue on our high school courts that were getting used for district matches or any kind of tournaments that our school was hosting. So that was putting more financial burden back on our school district,” Caddell said. “From the get-go, [Mayor Decker] has been there right by my side, encouraging me on. I actually wasn’t even here when the concrete got poured. He was sending me pictures, letting me know what was happening, a lot of the financial stuff that had to be done.”

With the support of the Stamford community, especially Mayor James Decker, Caddell was confident in the project.

“I can promise you, whether you notice it or not, this community has been giving to you. That was the whole idea behind this project to begin with is to give back to the community that’s given me so much,” Caddell said.

However, a simple pickleball court does come with a price tag of $27,000, something Decker said can eat into the funds of city necessities.

“When you’ve got a city that’s got a lot of needs and streets and waterlines and sewer lines, it’s very tough. You’ve only got a certain amount of money to go around. Then it’s really hard to figure out how much of that money to pry away from other pressing needs to quality-of-life stuff like the park that matters,” Decker said. “We added some playground equipment and removed some old playground equipment within the last two years. But something like this magnitude, it’s probably been about 20 years.”

Caddell said she is excited to see life brought back to the park through her project, hoping that future generations are inspired by it.

“[In elementary] we would get to walk to the local Sonic, go get our drinks, and then we would walk back to the park and get to play for hours, and unfortunately, that’s kind of dwindled down,” Caddell explained. “Now that [the pickleball court] is completed and it’s been done, I can drive by the park almost any day and there’s going to be somebody playing on the court.”

Caddell is planning to attend Texas Tech University in the fall with a double major in agricultural communications and energy commerce.