Good to see a group of volunteers taking hold of the Simic Skating Rink and working hard to reopen it. Community volunteers have done wonders with the Superior Auditorium and the Crest Theatre. Hopefully, the Simic volunteers will have the same kind of results.

My Grandfather Wrench was part of a Superior investment group that tore down part of the Peddicord barn and used the material salvaged to build the Skatemor Rink located where the VFW Club is now.

As a youngster I didn’t get to go there nearly enough. I was raised in the country and it was difficult to get a ride to and from the rink. It was a favorite place to go if I had a quarter. Admission was 10 cents, skate rental was 10 cents and when I finished roller skating I liked to go up town and buy a nickel ice cream cone.  I was never more than a novice skater who crept around the outer edge of the rink where I could grab a hold of the hand rail if I started to fall. I was envious of the good skaters who circled the rink near the center of the floor.

Roller skating was a summertime activity. The Skatemor lacked insulation and had fold out doors or windows to let the summer breezes in. On skating nights, you could hear the organ music while sitting on my grandparents’ porch near City Park.

When it came time to build the current rink, I’m not sure why Floyd Butler drafted me as a board member. Others did a lot more for the rink than I did and most of what I did was because Floyd demanded it.

I remember going with Floyd to visit Tony Simic, then a resident of the Good Samaritan home. I had grown up playing on Tony’s land southwest of Superior. He was a customer of my family’s gasoline station. At least once, when he was short of help, I had been part of his silage cutting crew. (That was the first and only time I have gotten to drive a crawler tractor.)  On the visits to the Good Samaritan Center, it was my job to help Floyd convince Tony the community would appreciate and benefit from the proposed rink.  Tony was in his last days, and as a bachelor we thought he needed a final project to support.

I was an early member of the Simic Skating Rink board.  Having served on several boards over the years, I’m hesitant to list the names of those who served with me but some of them were in addition to Butler, Don Gunn, Roger Wilton, John Sullivan and Tom Jensen. Arnold Ross later joined the board.

One of the first items of business was finding a location. We had offers of locations on East First Street and West Eighth Street, but we wanted a central location so it would be easy for Superior youngsters to walk to and from the rink. We didn’t want a location that would require parents to provide transportation.

Our first choice was a location in City Park but we never sold the council on that idea. Now with the growth of the museum complex, I believe the council was correct. There wasn’t room in City Park for both the museum and the skating rink.

Leo and Betty Zadina, operators of the Dairy Queen, were willing to provide the back side of the ice cream property provided we agreed to not compete with them for the skaters’ snack dollars.

We also assured potential donors that we would never allow pinball machines and the like within the rink. Along with providing recreational opportunities we wanted to provide the  youngsters physical activity and discourage a couch-potato life-style. Had they been in existence then, I am confident the first board would have objected to video games. We saw the rink as being a popular winter recreational venue and expected profits from the rink (never realized) could be used to support other summer recreational opportunities.

From the start we sought ways to hold down construction costs and much of the construction labor was donated.

I took Floyd to Omaha to shop for materials. I was amazed at all of the second-hand and building surplus stories he knew about. Benches were made from counter top seconds. Lockers were made out of surplus cabinet doors. Doors for the storage, mechanical and bathrooms were made from miscut doors. From a closeout paint store, we bought gallons of various pastel paints. When it came time to paint the interior, the colors were blended together in a plastic tub until there was enough of a pleasing color to paint a section of wall.

For spectator seating, the Olive Hill Church donated old pews which had been painted a light green.

As the Fourth and Bloom street intersection was subject to flooding, farmers brought their scrapers to town and hauled dirt in to raise the lot. Thus it is now necessary to go up to enter the front door.

When it came time to pour the concrete floor, it was thought desirable to do so in one continuous pour. I didn’t know about concrete pumpers but other board members did and they arranged for a concrete pumper truck to come to Superior. But how do you level, screed and pour such a floor?  Floyd stopped at the newspaper office one morning and told me he was to meet a cement contractor at Jewell that morning but he was having vehicle trouble and asked that I drive him to Jewell.

He didn’t know the name of the man we were going go see but he knew the directions to a farm where the man was finishing a floor.  I followed Floyd’s directions to the farm outside of Jewell. Parked my car and started to walk toward the construction site where I was stopped by a man who asked, “Bill, what are you doing here?”  I was surprised to learn the contractor was George Wrench, a distant relative I hadn’t seen since our country school days.

One Saturday afternoon, Floyd came by the newspaper office looking for help. He had started to paint the exterior of the skating rink that morning and had gotten in trouble with Hazel when he went home for dinner. He not only had paint all over his clothes but it was also on his pickup.

I have never used an airless sprayer before but I had previous experience painting with a more conventional sprayer. With Floyd’s help and a commercial airless sprayer borrowed from Gary Follmer, I painted three sides of the rink that afternoon.

When we needed foam insulation for the sidewalls, board members took orders around town, a local business provided the semitrailer truck for hauling and we got a better price by buying an entire truck load.

On New Year’s Eve, the rink was nearly ready to open but the bathrooms were not yet plumbed. My dad had stocked and sold plumbing supplies at his gasoline station.  I had never worked as a plumber but since my dad had stocked and sold pluming supplies at his gasoline station, I was drafted to plumb the bathrooms. The rink was packed with skaters as I attempted to complete the bathroom plumbing on New Year’s Eve.

I don’t know how well my plumbing worked but I do know new plumbing is now needed for while the rink was closed the water in the pipes froze creating many leaks.

While the Simic Rink was being designed, I visited other rinks in search of ideas.  In addition to the Skatemor I have visited rinks at Hardy, Ellsworth, Hastings and Lincoln. I’ve never been to the Formoso rink but it is on my bucket list of rinks to see. However, I don’t plan to take my skates.  At my age I think it best to limit my skating status to that of spectator. Should I change my mind, I do still own a pair of nearly new skates.

As one of the founding board members, I was entitled to purchase at cost a set of roller skates.  I did that and I skated on the Simic floor a handful of times but found I didn’t bounce well. That was a disappointment for in the summer I liked to ride my Windsurfer at Lovewell Lake and roller skating was said to be a good way to stay in Windsurfing shape.

I missed the Skatemor’s organ music but many disagreed with my music choice.  I didn’t like the contemporary music played at the Simic. Music selection caused many arguments.

I don’t remember when I left the skating rink board but once it was built, I had little interest in the daily operation.

Among my memories was the night an emergency board meeting was held around one of the West Third Street car wash pits. As the owner of the car wash, I had a pit full of mud and had to either close the wash or clean the pit and I chose to clean the pit. But that didn’t keep the board from meeting. The meeting was moved to the car wash. Not a single member attending that meeting offered to join me in scooping mud. I’m sure because of their choice they missed making memories.

Though he was never a board member, I remember Vernon Quy’s contribution to the rink. He not only was a retired carpenter, he was an experienced skating rink operator, having operated a rink in Mankato where the Central Bank is now located. He helped with the Simic and her perfected his motorized roller skates invention at the Simic, I’m told his motorized skates are now on display at a roller skating museum in Lincoln

Vernon was asked to demonstrate his invention on the Johnny Carson show. A link to a video clip showing Vernon skating on the Carson show is included with this story on our website at superiorne.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSr2uAHJdPU

I’m glad for the opportunity I had to help bring roller skating to Superior in the 1980s and am now glad it appears rolling skating will continue to be available in Superior thanks to another set of volunteers,

This Sunday the rink board is hosting a fund-raising meal and open house at the rink. For the details see the advertisement in this issue.