In 1982, Ron Ralph, George Van Mook and Edward Hibbs met in Logan’s coffee shop and discussed the possibility of developing a slow pitch baseball park for the slow pitch clubs in Langley. After that meeting, Ralph and Hibbs went before Township Council to request the use of land next to Langley Secondary School. An agreement was made for a period of five years, with annual progress reviews.
The Langley Volunteer Sports Association began work on the park immediately. In 1982 and ’83, more than $80,000 worth of time and equipment was donated by Finning Tractor with the help of Joe Cindrich, who was with Finning before becoming owner of Sandpiper Contracting. Ron Ralph, though his connections with various construction companies, brought in the operators for the equipment, and the swampy land was cleared, filled and leveled.
For a year and a half, meetings were held at Finning’s offices. Ralph who brought in many new volunteers to assist with the work chaired the meetings. His company, Ralph’s Trucking, supplied all of the fuel for the equipment. Ralph, with help from Hibbs, researched the latest methods of play field construction and the best type of sand to use. Ralph found the required sand near the Fort Langley Seaplane Airport and received permission from Art Sellers, owner of the airport, to acquire the quantity needed.
In addition to constructing the playfields and parking lot, improvements were also made to the parkland donated by the McLeod family. The family was extremely grateful to Ralph and the Langley Voluntary Sports Association for their efforts to establish the land as a usable park.
The majority of work to construct the park was completed between 1982 and 1985, until the time of Ron Ralph’s death. Further work was done by the LVSA after his passing, and Ralph’s company continued to support the development of the park which was simply know as the Municipal Athletic Park until being renamed to the McLeod Athletic Park in 2002. Without Ralph’s vision and passion, and the contributions of the LVSA, the park would not exist as it does today.
|
