HANCEVILLE, Ala. – Saturday was a big day for swimmers in Hanceville. The Hanceville Pool officially reopened at C.W. Day Park Saturday morning with some new additions and renovations for locals to enjoy.
Chris Johnson, Hanceville’s Pool manager, talked about the decision to renovate the pool, and add some more things to it as well. He’s really happy that the pool is open again.
“We decided, during the offseason, that we wanted to try and update it a little bit,” Johnson said. “We wanted to try and bring more people in from out of town, make the community happier by bringing in some new features, something that they hadn’t seen before. We wanted to try and breathe new life into the pool a little bit. I’m extremely happy to see the pool back open. We have put in a lot of work into it over the offseason, from completely draining it, to redoing, resurfacing things, and repainting. It’s been a labor of love and we’re extremely happy that we’re finally able to open it for the public to see.”
The pool has some new additions and Chris is really excited about them.
“This year, we’ve completely repainted, and we’ve fixed a lot on the kiddie pool. That’s something that it’s an ongoing issue for a couple of years. We finally were able to get it fixed, so we’re looking at, hopefully, the next couple of days to finally have that open and running again,” Johnson said. “We’ve actually got a brand-new diving board that we just replaced and also, our brand-new diving platform that we built, and somewhat of a high-style jumping platform for everybody to enjoy.”
There are three different price ranges at the pool.
“Three dollars is for our young kids, as well as our seniors, and also, your hometown heroes: the military, first responders, medical, and teachers,” Johnson said. “Four dollars is going to be for younger kids, the toddlers up to early teens. It’ll be five dollars for the adult general-type admission.”
Assistant Manager Chandler Brown is really excited to see the pool open back up and hopes the new improvements will help bring in more people to enjoy it.
“I’m really excited. We’ve made a lot of improvements this year. We’ve put in new mirrors and new lights. We painted everything and we deep-cleaned really well, so I’m really excited to see how much this progresses us,” Brown said. “I think the new improvements will make it a safer place for people to come hang out and bring their kids because you don’t want to bring your kids somewhere that’s not clean, so I think that it’ll help bring in more people.”
Chandler continued,
“After the lifeguards got certified, which was about three weeks ago, we started working on this,” Brown said. “We’ve pretty much been up here every day, just working from 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. getting everything ready. It took about two-and-a-half weeks.”
Assistant manager Ella Absher had trouble containing her excitement about the pool opening back up and she believes that the new additions will help bring more people to the pool as well.
“I’m ecastic. I’ve worked here for about four years, and this is the absolute best it’s ever looked in the entire time I’ve worked here,” Absher said. “I’m so happy that it’s open and that we’ve got so much. Everything is new and clean; it looks great. I hope these new additions helps bring a lot of people because this is a good family pool. We’ve had tons of people come in just because it’s the Hanceville Pool. They want to come and support Hanceville, but I’m hoping, with our new additions, that it brings in a lot more people because our pool, honestly, I believe, is one of the best.”
Ella works with a bunch of great people at the pool, and she had nothing but good things to say about them.
“I think, almost all of us, have a really good work ethic and we want to be here,” Absher said. “We’re willing to put in the hard hours and do all of the hard things to make this pool the best that it can be.”
Ryan Davis, along with the others, is happy to see it open back up and he hopes that the new additions will bring in some more people.
“I’m really happy to see the pool open back up. We’ve put a lot of work into it. I think we finally got it presentable,” Davis said. “It was looking a little bit not so great last year, but we fixed it up because Chris came in and got everything going. I think people will see how much hard work we’ve put into it, and they’ll appreciate what we’re doing for the city. I can’t speak for everybody, but most people here went to school together. We’re all about the same age, so we all get along.”
Hanceville Pool will be open Monday – Saturday from 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. and Sunday from 12-6 p.m.
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