The City of DuBois met under a beautiful blue, sunny sky, for the dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony of the Rose and Dennis Heindl Memorial Field Sunday afternoon.
The ceremony marked the culmination of a tremendous amount of hard work and progressive vision by an entire community and its people to make the city a better place to live, said Master of Ceremonies Jeff Baronick.
“The genesis of this project was to find a safe and suitable place for our Challenger division of baseball to play,” Baronick said. “That, coupled with the City of DuBois’ desire to cover Little League softball and have a multi-purpose field to complement the renovation of the Showers Field Baseball Stadium have led us here today.”
“This project, along with the continued renovation of the Stern Family Field, has made our city park the perfect crown jewel of DuBois,” Baronick said. “It has become the destination spot of many in the athletic community from all over the United States. As we witnessed recently, the city of DuBois hosted the Small College World Series in both baseball and softball.”
Baronick said the renovation has and will continue to showcase not only the community and what it has to offer, but more importantly, it will continue to share the quality of people that make the city of DuBois the greatest place to live and the greatest place to work.
Sunday, many of those individuals and organizations were recognized for giving of their time, talents, and money to help build one of the finest athletic facilities in the entire country.
“It’s something that we can all be proud of,” Baronick said.
Baronick first acknowledged those present who served active duty or are in the Reserves in the U.S. military.
“Because of your dedication and devotion to duty, our flag flies over our land of freedom and for that, we are eternally grateful,” said Baronick.
The national anthem was then sung by Senior Division Challenger League player Donald Ross.
Challenger League Co-Director and Coach Bill Cuba thanked those involved for “making this beautiful field happen.”
Those included DuBois City Manager John “Herm” Suplizio and the City of DuBois.
About four years ago, Suplizio mentioned to Cuba the possibility of building a field for the Challenger League — a field that would utilize the turf-like material that would allow the players to easily maneuver themselves around, preventing the dangers associated with the mud and the uneven surface throughout the space of the previous field.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that it would turn into this,” said Cuba. “I mean look, there’s a waterfall here.”
Cuba also thanked all the donors who were present at the ceremony for their donations:
- Dennis Heindl and his family. Heindl, a Ridgway resident and former DuBois businessman, donated a total of $250,000, plus $10,000 a year in perpetuity to be used to maintain the field.
- Pittsburgh Pirates Charities, which contributed $100,000 toward the new facility, Pittsburgh Pirates principal owner Bob Nutting and Pittsburgh Pirates President Frank Coonelly.
- Kevin Shannon, $50,000.
- Todd Miller, representing S&T Bank, $50,000.
- Nick Hoffman, representing the Varischetti Foundation, which contributed $100,000, to build the Boundless Playground.
- Chief Operating Officer Mark Norman, Penn Highlands Healthcare, $150,000.
“On behalf of our coaches of the Challenger League and, more importantly, our players, thank you,” said Cuba.
Following the ceremony, those attending stayed to cheer on the athletes of the Challenger League as they played a few short games. Jayden Wruble threw out the first pitch to the Pittsburgh Pirates Parrot.
“I promise, you will leave with a smile on your face,” Cuba told the crowd before the games started.
