Crowds return to Alma’s growing water park

story and photos by Marla Cantrell
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When Alma’s water park opened on June 5, 1,500 people came to swim and play. The biggest draw was the newest attraction — two 40’ high wedgie slides.

Mayor John Ballentine said the name says it all, the ride is so swift, swimsuits tend to end up where no one expected them to go.

The two slides cost the city $500,000. Ballentine thinks it’s a wise investment. The park draws visitors from the surrounding counties, as well as the locals who use the park throughout the summer.

“It helps push our businesses,” Ballentine said. “It puts us on the map. … People talk about us as far away as Tulsa. We have people come and then they come back every year.”

Jason Cox, who lives in Chester, proves the mayor’s point. He was at the park with his wife, son and niece.

“This is our first visit this year, but we came last year,” Cox said. “We like everything about it.”

The park is not a big money maker. Tickets range in price from $1 for the very young and very old, to $7 for older children and adults. The city expects to collect $300,000 during the two-and-a-half months it’s open, if stormy weather doesn’t close the pool too many days. It will cost approximately $250,000 to operate.

Part of that cost is the lifeguards who supervise both pools, the toilet bowl slide — yes, it’s called that — where visitors get “flushed” through a green and gold cylinder, and the new wedgie slides. Even the original water slide, where the water reaches only two feet, has two lifeguards, one at the top and one in the pool below. The city employees 25 Red Cross certified lifeguards.

“I try not to hire anybody under 16,” Ballentine said. “We try to groom them and train them and keep them. I have one gentleman who started with us in high school and he’s about to graduate from Arkansas Tech where he’s studying to be an electrical engineer. I have one girl and her brother who were on the swim team. She’s now at UAFS.”

Ballentine, who came up with the plan to bring the water park to Alma 11 years ago while he was bailing hay in the blazing sun, said it gives the town of 5,000 its own identity.

“Every kid in Alma wanted to go to Fort Smith,” Ballentine said. “The movies are over there, the bowling alley, everything’s there. We don’t have the shops like Van Buren. Or Sister’s with oysters on the half-shell with the booze, or the Rib Room like on Garrison Avenue.”

And he’s not finished yet. He someday wants one more slide to complete the park. The frisbie golf course continues to draw visitors, a new fishing park is in place northeast of the main area, and a hiking trail has just been added.  A new community center is under construction and Ballentine hopes to build four tennis courts in the near future.

“We need eight courts for a state tournament, but we’d be able to host regionals here,” Ballentine explained.

The park, which is also home to the city’s water treatment plant, is banked on its northernmost point by an earthen dam.  Beyond that is a 124 acre lake where fishing is allowed.

“We had one lady catch a crappie,” Ballentine said. “She lacked two ounces beating the state record, off the fishing pier up there.”

Ballentine is proud of the park and the recognition it brings to Alma. It’s come a long way since the initial $1 million dollar investment. And although he won’t yet say whether he’ll run for re-election this year, he did say he’d like to be in office when the current projects have been completed. That’s not likely to happen before his current term expires.