MONTROSE — New things are popping up in Montrose as villagers continue to plan for its future.
Montrose now has a new ball field, thanks partly to a parks grant the village received last year.
The grant, Open Space Land Acquisition and Development (OSLAD), will fund other projects to improve the village’s campground and lake recreation area. The design plans are finished, and the projects are soon to be put out for bid, according to Mayor Steve Browning.
“I would like to see some of those projects done before late fall, but I don’t know,” said Browning.
The ball field results from a partnership between the village of Montrose and Dieterich Crush Athletics.
While the ball field isn’t 100% complete, the infield and fencing are. Missing yet is a scoreboard that the village has ordered and is paying for through the grant.
A unique feature of the field is its turf infield. Crush Athletics President Brent Bohnhoff notes there’s not another one within an hour and a half from the village.
“The thing about having a turf field is, if it rains, 10 or 15 minutes later, we’d be able to play on it, and it would save us a lot of prep work – chalking lines. Basically, everything is set up for us. It’s got a good drainage system under it as well,” he said.
The ball field is needed for Dieterich Crush, which has 11 teams.
“Obviously, it’s very hard to get a field these days for softball and baseball,” said Bohnhoff.
The organization, which established its 501©(3) status this year, has four girls teams and seven boys teams with players ranging from 8 years old to 16.
“Between our 11 teams, this will give our teams the opportunity to use the field every night for practice or to set games up. We’ll also be able to use the field for weekend tournaments or round-robins and just a chance for us to have a home field. Just gives our kids a lot of opportunity that they might not have had,” said Bohnhoff.
Bohnhoff notes the ball field is big enough to play high school-level baseball, with 90-foot bases and 60-foot pitching mounds.
“We have a couple of portable mounds. We can move the mounds to various distances for larger kids or the younger kids,” he added. “We’re also going to have a breakaway fence for 200 feet for official softball fencing for our softball teams and for the youth to have a fence a little bit closer. For our older kids up to high school age, we have a fence of 280 feet from the corners and 315 feet to the center field. It allows us to play all the way up to 16 and 18 years old.”
Bohnhoff said the Crush organization fundraised quite a bit of the money to get the field set up as far as turf and fencing. Local businesses have also stepped up to help by donating either labor or materials.
Bohnhoff notes that Montrose village officials have been great partners in the project.
“They’ve also helped out with a few other things in their grant,” he said.
Once the scoreboard is set up, Bohnhoff said they plan to add more to the field.
“Our second phase is hopefully lights and some other additions to the field, possibly, a batting cage,” he said.
Bohnhoff said adding a second field would be nice in the future.
“Not sure if that’s going to work, but that may be a future phase too – a smaller field for the smaller youth,” he said.
Bohnhoff notes that Crush players aren’t just from Dieterich but surrounding counties as well. Crush started seven years ago with one team and has grown to include a basketball program during the winter. It has players from third grade to high school. Bohnhoff said at least half the teams travel out of town to compete.
The organization keeps growing, with six new teams created in 2023. Bohnhoff said the organization’s not-for-profit status makes it easier for new teams to get set up.
“That’s just another way of keeping our organization running,” he said.
Bohnhoff said village officials have been great to work with.
“I just want to say how thankful we are to the village of Montrose and how thankful we are that they’ve worked with us,” he said.
The momentum the grant has spurred has village officials embarking on a program to create a comprehensive plan for the village.
The program, MAPPING, is a strategic visioning and planning process in which residents provide input to create that plan. MAPPING, which stands for Management and Planning Programs Involving Nonmetropolitan Groups, is offered through the Illinois Institute of Rural Affairs.
A special meeting was held in December to see if residents were interested in starting the process. The response was overwhelming, and a steering committee was formed.
Since then, the 20-member committee has created a logo and is gathering a master list of potential participants to invite to the MAPPING process when it begins this fall.
“Right now, we are just working on getting more people involved because those five sessions in the fall are where we will really break it down into hopefully three big goals and strategies and outcomes and how to get to those goals then,” said committee member Holly Herboth.
Herboth is impressed by the response so far to the endeavor.
“They mentioned that usually five to 10 people stay involved until the fall sessions start. We’ve had a solid 15-20 people active in each meeting at least. So, I feel like we’ve got a strong group. I’m hoping that we can get a bigger group in the fall,” she said.
Herboth was raised in Montrose and chose to come back after college and a short residency in Teutopolis. She cited Dieterich School District as one of the reasons she and her husband chose to build a house in the Montrose area and raise a family there. The other was family.
“My family’s very close in proximity. Basically, our neighbors now were my neighbors growing up too,” she said.
Although the Montrose community is small, Herboth believes it’s strong because the residents are close.
“When someone needs something, I feel our community pulls together, and you can trust the community,” she said.
Herboth is looking forward to September when the fall planning sessions will start. They will run for five weeks through the beginning of October.
“We’re just hoping to get a really good turnout to bring some new things to Montrose to better our community,” she said.