In 2010, Murray community members petitioned to have a skate park built for the area.

Though the Lions Club Community Skatepark was completed in October 2012, students and community members are working to add more ramps and rails.

Since the skate park’s opening, students and community members donated money and volunteered their time to aid in the development of the skatepark.

Initially, McCoil said Murray’s vote to pass the Park Referendum would be an extra step toward progressing in the project.

However, the results of Tuesday’s election showed the tax did not pass.

Falwell said it would take approximately $100,000 to outfit the skate park with the half-pipe and other ramps.

“We will have to continue working out of private funds and donations as well as hold fundraisers to support the project,” Falwell said.

In September, engineering students at Murray State installed two large ramps and two rail sections.

Bryan McCoil, senior from Long Island, N.Y., saw the improvements to the skate park as an opportunity to do something for the community, as well as his son.

“I thought it would be a great opportunity to do some community outreach for the engineering department,” McCoil said. “My son, who also skates, and I have been waiting on the ramps to be installed for a year since we heard about it, and that weekend was actually my son’s birthday and I thought that would be awesome for him to see that happen.”

McCoil worked with his brother Pete and four electromechanical engineering students, Moe Maghrabi, senior from Murray, Dustin Patton, senior from Murray, Majid Alotibi, junior from Murray and Sean James, senior from Pleasureville, Ky.

McCoil’s 7-year-old son Will also helped the group with smaller tasks. McCoil said this portion of the project took more than 12 hours to complete.

“We started at 8 a.m. and were there until almost 10 p.m.,” McCoil said. “We had to assemble the parts piece by piece. There were bags of bolts and brackets and no instructions. The first one was quite a puzzle, but once we got the hang of it, the rest of the assembly went smoothly.”

Since the construction of these ramps and rails, there has been more talk of improvements made to the skate park.

Leaders of the project, Murray Lions Club and Matt Falwell, owner of  Gear Up Cycles, are continuing efforts to raise money to have more sections of ramps installed.

One of these sections includes a large half pipe.

Story by Hunter Harrell, Features Editor