By Byron Beers/Sports Editor

The Mary K. Ashbrook Foundation has provided a lot to the El Reno community in many areas over the years.

Now it is providing a helping hand to Lynetta Keller and her softball program.

The foundation’s trustees, Virginia Douglas, Betty Dittmer and Gayle Meinberg, recently accepted a proposal by Keller for over $40,000 on renovations that will be made to Joe E. Riley Jr. Memorial Softball Park — a complex that is better than 30 years old.

This will be the second phase of construction work done to the complex. The school provided new netting from dugout to dugout, roofing and an outfield fence over the summer.

But Keller, who just completed her second year as head coach, wanted more and that’s when she went to the Ashbrook Foundation in late August — although unsure about her decision at first thought.

“The school did not have the funds to do this so we went to Ashbrook,” Keller said. “I was very hesitant at first because I wasn’t familiar with the Ashbrook Foundation, but I am very thankful.

“You always ask for more and think you will get just a little, but they granted my whole request.”

The project will include the installation of an adequate irrigation system, a new locker room, a perimeter fence that will surround the entire facility and a chain link fence.

Work is expected to be completed before the start of the 2006-07 school year.

Keller went through a similar situation when coaching at Putnam City North where its facilities were upgraded from the ground up.

“I’ve already been through this whole process because we had to totally build the complex out there,” Keller said.

“We want to try and do the same here in El Reno and give the girls something to be excited about.”

Keller sees this as a great opportunity, not only for safety reasons, but also as a golden opportunity for the future of the softball program.

She feels that improved facilities will give her team more dignity, and has the potential to bring in more kids.

“This gives us a little bit of pride,” Keller said. “The girls want their own home and something they can be proud of and something they can take care of.”

“If people start seeing now that we have a serious program then maybe we will have more girls come out for softball.”

Douglas, the chairman for the Ashbrook Foundation, just wants to help out in any way she can.

The foundation has supplied more than $3 million since 1978.

Other athletic facilities they have supported with expenses within the last two years include the El Reno Soccer Club and the El Reno Optimist Club.

“We want to improve the youth organization activities and that’s about all we can do for youth,” Douglas said. “This will just be for the better for El Reno.”

“What we try to do is look at it and see how many people it will help, and the more the better,” secretary Gayle Meinberg said.
There is still more that Keller would like to see done to the complex in the future.

“We would still like to do something about the seating and have a press box where we can have a sound system to introduce the girls,” she said.

“We need to have good facilities and they need a locker room to change in other than the parking lot.”