BY ROSE POST
SALISBURY POST

COOLEEMEE — If a tractor-trailer hadn’t clipped a sagging phone line in Mocksville Thursday afternoon ...

But it did, announced Ken Sales, chairman of the Cooleemee RiverPark Task Force.

So he couldn’t get the phone call through that would have confirmed the last $13,000 of the $1.1 million goal for the first phase of development for the park.

Supporters gathered at the Cooleemee shopping center to see the big fund-raising thermometer blow its red top will have to wait for another day and be satisfied with watching Jane Simpson, who’s headed the fund-raising effort since February 2000, paint the line to the accurate $1,087,000 mark.

But nothing could dim the pleasure of about two dozen people gathered at the shopping center to witness the symbolic gesture — or more than twice that many at the VFW building at 7 p.m. to see the final version of the master plan for the park. In fact, the tale of the telephones might have added a bit of spice to the evening.

“I was one of the doubting Thomases,” said Cooleemee native Hayden Beck, whose gray hair indicates he’s been around a while, as Simpson applied the paint to the thermometer. “I didn’t believe this could be done, and I’m surprised and happy.”

“This is great!” said just retired Gail Bivens. “I figured it would happen. I just thought it would take longer.”

“We have all surprised ourselves,” Sales said, opening the meeting that followed at the VFW building across the street, “but we knew that when we had good people working on a good project, there would be success.”

He also announced that he has spoken with Frank and Sue Earnhardt, and the sale of their 32-plus acres of land on the Davie side of the park is eminent. The survey showed the tract was slightly smaller than the expected 35 to 36 acres.

The task force has already bought 40 acres on the Rowan County side from Claude Horn.

Charles Anderson, executive director of Pilot View Inc., a Winston-Salem recreation, conservation and development firm, which has entered a formal partnership with the RiverPark Task Force to develop the park, told the group the first priority is getting the land.

The second priority, he said, is developing the master plan, which is now complete.

And construction should begin as soon as design work for the first phase is completed. He expects that to be within a short time. Construction is scheduled to begin this summer.

The only major change in the plan since the meeting to get public input three weeks ago is the addition of more restrooms.

A written narrative of the master plan for the park will be completed shortly and be available to the public and for fund-raising purposes.

Roy Pender, principal landscape architect at West Fourth Landscape Architecture of Winston-Salem, said he is excited “to be part of this wonderful project.”

“If you don’t try to do something important,” he told the group, “you will definitely fail. Cooleemee has tried, and it did not fail.”

Reaction at the meeting was equally positive.

“This is a great idea,” said Dickie Parnell, who won the plastic duck race at the opening fund-raiser for the park last summer and grew up at the Bullhole, the historic swimming area just below the dam across the South Yadkin River which will be the centerpiece of the Park. “And it’s a great thing for both Davie and Rowan County.”

Frances Carter Miller, who has trouble walking because of arthritis, made sure she was at the meeting to support the project. Her mother is pictured in an early 1900s photograph of Charlie Carter’s riverboat. A replica of that boat is to become part of the park. And her daughter, Ann Miller Spry, has served on the RiverPark Task Force.

Contact Rose Post at 704-797-4251 or rpost@salisburypost.com .