After a short delay, the Waverly pool opened for the 2026 season on Tuesday, June 16. The bumpy start was due to much-needed repairs on the 56-year-old pool. Though she is getting up there in age, the Waverly pool is a much-loved asset to the City of Waverly.

If we travelled back to 1969, we would see a group of Waverly community members who were tossing around the idea of a pool. As part of this process, a board of eight men was formed: Bob Sowers, Wendell Schmidt, Lawrence Gilpin, David Peters, Jack Peters, Larry Hiltabidle, Don Arth and Norman Weedin, who served as the first chairman of the board.

“We saw a need and knew there wasn’t any way the city could build a pool,” said David Peters, who is the last surviving member of the original board. “AJ Hilbrenner owned the property and was kinda promoting getting it started,” Peters recalled. “So the board members went to the bank and took out what I think was about $20,000 [in a personal loan]. All the board members and their wives had to sign to guarantee the loan.”

Peters said the board found and paid a professional to install the pool, but all other work for the pool was done by board and community members.

“We got the loan in March and we were moving dirt by July,” Peters said. “Bob Sowers owned an earthmover and we dug the hole, Lawrence Gilpin was a brick layer, so he built the block house and he knew about concrete, so he got all the concrete work organized. Everything except the pool itself was donated labor.”

The pool was build with gunite, a process in which the in-ground pool is framed out in rebar and then a specialized cement mixture is sprayed to form the interior of the pool. This type of pool is highly durable and long-lasting, but as part of the maintenance, the pool must contain water year-round. Gunite pools are highly porous and must remain hydrated.  If the pool were completely drained, the gunite could dry out and begin to crack.

“If there isn’t water in it, the gunite will break up,” Smith explained. “So each year it gets pumped down as far as the pump will take it and then the rain over the winter will fill it back up. In the spring, the fire department comes and pumps it down as far as they can, and then Matt Hostetter comes and removes the rest of the gunk at the deep end.”

Hostetter cleans out the debris from the pool using a vac truck, which they own as part of their business, Hostetter Construction. He said this service is done on a volunteer basis, and his family has been doing it for a long time.

“Dad was on the pool board for years, and he used to do it,” Hostetter said. “But then he decided he didn’t want to do it anymore, so I decided to do it. We do it to help our community so the kids have a place to play and stay out of trouble. I have a 10-year-old boy who goes there and my daughter is a lifeguard there, so it helps in that way too. It helps kids make a little money.”

From the beginning, the pool was set up as a private pool, with memberships going to pay for the loan and the maintenance of the pool. At the time, the joining fee was $300 and the annual fee was $125. Despite this, pretty much anyone who wanted to use the pool was able to do so.

“We had one person who thought this might be just a pool for rich kids, but it didn’t turn out that way,” Peters said. “We had a lot of people who supported the pool and they bought memberships, but they never did swim. So we would loan out those memberships to other people who wanted to swim.”

And Peters said the pool was very popular right from the start.

“Everybody really enjoyed it and it got a lot of usage, especially those first years when it was something new for the town,” he said. “We paid it [the loan] off pretty quickly, like 3-4 years.”

Nowadays, the pool remains a private pool, though in 2007 it was set up to run as a 501(c)(3). The joining fee is $150 and the annual fee is also $150.

The pool has remained largely the same throughout the years, with instances of maintenance when needed.

In 2007, Greg Prather and Bob MaCoy spearheaded a project on the pool which included new fencing, painting of the pool house, and work on the roof. At that time a room was built over the pump and filters to block sunlight and hopefully lengthen the lifespan of the equipment. Additionally, the baby pool was removed and covered with concrete because it was no longer working.

An ongoing issue with the pool, which has been addressed multiple times, is the gutter system. According to pool board member Suzanne Smith, approximately 10 years ago the galvanized gutters around the perimeter of the pool were redone, but they didn’t hold up.

“At one time a liner was put over it, but it wore through,” Smith explained. “Waverly hard water mixed with pool chemicals just ate through it.”

This is an issue that will soon need addressing, to the tune of approximately $60,000.

Then, about eight years ago, the Waverly Swim Club began a piccadilly to help raise funds for the cost of maintenance on the pool. The event was a hit and still continues to this day. But because of rising costs, the piccadilly now serves to help fund general operating costs and isn’t able to cover much in the way of pool maintenance.

At the beginning of the 2026 season, the pool pump finally gave up the ghost.

“We still had the original filters, and the pump had been redone several times,” Smith explained. “This year we needed all new plumbing, three filters and a pump.”

To do these repairs, the board had to raise approximately $12,000. According to Smith, the board made a plea for donations for the repairs needed to open, and several silent donors came forward and made it happen.

After the pump project was complete, the pool opened approximately two weeks behind schedule.

“We usually remain open until mid-August because that’s when we lose all our lifeguards,” Smith said. “But [this year] we will keep it open as late as we can to make up for that.”

Now that the pool is up and running, attention has turned to the next project, which is the rusting gutter system. Peters said this is the one thing the original board maybe should have done differently.

“The only thing we really didn’t do right was putting stainless steel around the edge,” he lamented.

The maintenance of the guttering has indeed been a difficult. In addition to repeated repairs, the board has been searching long and hard for someone to replace the gutters.

“It’s been a bear to find somebody,” Smith said. “We’ve been trying to find somebody for three years. But at least now we’re getting bids! We’ve reached out to some places in the city, but we’ve gotten a couple of bids within a 40-mile radius and we’re trying to do as much stuff locally as possible.”

Shortly after funding was secured for the pump project this spring, work began to gather funding for the gutter project. According to Smith, board member Wendy Ballenger wrote a grant with Buckner Foundation in Marshall and received $25,000 toward the project. Then the Waverly Lions Club donated an additional $5,000. Board members will continue efforts to raise the remaining $30,000 and are planning a pulled pork dinner this fall to add to the pot.

Despite the ongoing maintenance, which you would have with any pool, Peters said it is very fortunate that the community was able to build a pool that has lasted this long. And Smith agrees.

“Over the years there have been lots of kids who enjoyed the pool, who learned to swim there, we even had a swim team there at one time,” she recalled. “It is the only place in town that families can go together and kids can learn to swim. And it also serves as a place of employment for kids, because they can get their lifeguard certification when they’re 15.”

If you would like to donate or volunteer to assist with the pool, please reach out to a board member. Current pool board members are: Becky Jo Young, Wendy Ballenger, Jill Minnis, Kim Dankenbring, Suzanne Smith and two new board members as of June 2026, Holly Gordillo and Alex Hostetter.