Fundraising underway to build new stadium in Columbia Falls

More than a week after a fire destroyed the Columbia Falls baseball stadium, an excavator removed the remaining debris to make room for a new grandstand.

Meanwhile, the Glacier Babe Ruth League has begun fundraising to try to pay for the project.

Thursday at 7:30 a.m., Tom Kemppainen of Columbia Falls arrived to take apart the blackened pieces of the bleachers at his childhood baseball field.

“I’ve been around for 30 years. I played here when it was built, but taking this apart has to be done. Fires happen,” said Kemppainen, the vice president of the Columbia Falls Baseball Board.

The bleachers at the Sapa-Johnsrud Babe Ruth Fields caught fire late on June 27. Columbia Falls Fire Chief Rick Hagen said he believed the fire was the result of someone setting off fireworks in a garbage can under the wooden grandstands.

Columbia Falls Police are investigating how the fire started.

Ray Queen, the president of the Glacier Babe Ruth League, said when the stadium was built in 1989, the organization paid roughly $30,000 for parts and construction.

Queen said since the fire, community members and local businesses have donated nearly $30,000 over 10 days. But he said that won’t be enough.

“With today’s cost, I’m thinking we’re looking at needing $100,000 for materials and to get it standing,” he said. “And we’re far from that. Even in planning, we’re in the initial phases. It’s just going slower than I would like. But we’ll get there. The community’s been amazing.”

Kemppainen said he took two days off work to demolish the ruined stadium. Kemppainen works for Evenson Technologies Inc., a company that runs a freight-hauling business from Kalispell. He said his boss gave him the days off and the equipment needed to clear the jumble of burned timbers.

“When stuff like this happens in Columbia Falls, everyone really comes together to help,” he said. “We’re removing this for free and Ureco Inc. is taking the lumber off our hands. From Whitefish to other communities in our area, there’s so many people helping with this.”

Lindsay Andrachick, the baseball board’s president, said volunteers such as Kemppainen will be the only way the new stadium will be completed.

“When we built this 30 years ago, it was kind of a good old-fashioned barn raising — volunteers got together over the weekend and it was done,” she said. “But today we have the red tape to go through, like getting city permits and insurance.”

Because the baseball field is on state land, which the board leases, every step of preparing for the new structure needs to be approved by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, she said.

Andrachick said anyone who wants to help rebuild the stadium will have to be licensed and insured for the work, which narrows the organization’s available pool of volunteers.

“There’s a lot involved with this project, between the state, the communities and the baseball boards,” she said. “We’re really working to get organized on how to handle the next steps.”

Queen said he hopes the project can be finished sometime this season, though he’s unsure how long he will have to wait to get a shovel in the ground or what the new stadium will look like.

He said while a lot is unknown, he and community members want to see another classic wooden stadium — with a few improvements and new safety features.

“That stadium is something Columbia Falls is proud of, our kids play there and a lot of us did too,” he said. “We’re going to keep the look that was there.”

People wanting to donate to the project can make a direct donation to a Glacier Bank checking account called Columbia Falls Grandstands as of July 12, or visit http://www.glacierbaberuth.org for more information and other donation options.

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.