The art created by Troy Douthett requires math, balance, frequent exercise and practice, above all else, to pull off consistently. His minute movements atop a skateboard can give him the air for a trick, or send him off balance and falling to the ground.

Douthett said prior to the construction of Father Marinaro Skate Park in 2002, practicing his art around the city was seen as a nuisance, and he and other skaters were sometimes punished.

“Early skaters, that’s the way it was, we were basically criminals,” said Douthett, who is now 50. “That’s what skate parks are really meant to do, is draw people in.”

Father Marinaro Skate Park, which is off Kaufman Drive in Butler, was bustling with activity Tuesday evening, as skaters jumped ollies, grinded on rails and sailed over ramps with their boards mostly underneath them.

As Douthett explained, the city was not always so welcoming to skaters, and the skate park is actually the result of skateboarders getting in trouble for tricking around the city.

“A whole bunch of kids, including my son, got in trouble at the high school, and the 18 kids that got in trouble got community service,” said Cindy Parker, a Butler resident who helped build the skate park. “I didn't want my kid out skating where he wasn't supposed to be, but they needed a place to go. I just got dragged into it because it was something my kids needed.”

The skate park at Father Marinaro Park opened in October 2002, but even earlier to some youth who crashed the ramps while they were still under construction. Now, Parker, Douthett and some other skaters are trying to revamp the skate park to not only make it safer, but better its “flow.” A group, including Douthett and Parker, attended Butler City Council July 20 to discuss what they would like to see at the park in the coming years.

“The whole point was to go to city council and say ‘Hey, there is a culture here of young and old that deserves a little attention,’” said Ken Clowes, assistant at the Butler County Community College Community Initiatives Center and avid skateboarder. “As these ramps get updated and added, we'd like to see some changes and additions that let anybody ride.”

Parker said the skate park was built atop a tennis court that “no one ever used” in 2002. The layout of the ramps and course are still the same today as it was when it was first constructed, aside from the central pyramid, which was removed around 2015, according to Parker.

Parker said it was mainly the skateboarders who designed its layout, because she invited the group that was sentenced to community service to her house to find out how they wanted to make it. Some members of the group even went to Butler City Council to discuss what would be possible in the construction of the park.

“I invited the 18 kids to my house and said 'Draw me on a piece of paper what you want to see at the park,'” Parker said.

According to Parker, the four-foot tall pyramid originally constructed at the park cost $500, and among the construction crew were employees of Home Depot, who were performing community aid. According to an article in the Butler Eagle published in October 2002, more than 8,000 volunteer hours of work and at least $25,000 of donated money went into the creation of the skate park.

Douthett said he got involved in the creation of the park, as well, and said almost all the wood making up the ramps has been maintained all this time.

“We were out here for a good six months building it,” Douthett said. “It was hard to keep everybody off while we were building.”

According to Parker, the opening of the skate park changed the skateboarding culture in Butler immediately. Children would ride the ramps all day, trying to pull off the best tricks they could — meaning they were also staying out of trouble in town.

“For the longest time, where there were skateboarders, those kids were the bad kids, they were delinquents,” Parker said. “If we would have never had this park, I think the culture here may have died.”

The young people who frequented Father Marinaro and other skate parks in the 2000s didn’t all go away with age. Clowes said he thinks skateboarding has only become more accepted through time, especially seeing that people probably won’t get ticketed for skateboarding in public nowadays.

“It's different now than it was in the ’80s or ’90s, there was no guidance, the culture itself was still growing up,” Clowes said. “Now, skateboarding is an Olympic sport, it is viewed completely differently.“

In talking to Butler City Council, Parker emphasized the need to update the infrastructure at the skate park, in order to make it not only safer for skateboarders, but more stimulating.

“I don't think in the 20 years it has been here that it has ever sat dormant,” Parker said. “Up until now, it was just the group chugging along, raising money. Our real goal right now is raising money to get a pyramid, that has been our goal since 2019.”

In addition to polishing up the ramps and obstacles, Parker said she would like to see a restroom of some kind installed closer to the skate park, and also for the pavilion to be updated.

Clowes, who did not grow up skating in Butler but moved to the area around seven years ago, said that although the park needs some updates, he would like for it to remain accessible to all skill levels.

“Even as skateboarders, we have different ideas of what we want to do,” Clowes said. “We don’t want to see this turn into a professional thing where young kids can’t learn and the older guys can’t skate. As these ramps get updated and added, we’d like to see some changes and additions that let anybody ride.”

Butler City Councilman Don Shearer told Parker, Douthett and Clowes on July 20 that the city has a separate bank account that holds funds specifically meant for Father Marinaro Skate Park.

Butler Mayor Bob Dandoy invited the group to email him to have a discussion about their wants for the park in the future. Douthett said he is optimistic about the future of the skate park.

“I can't help but dream big,” he said. “Hopefully, we can all be involved with council and the mayor.”

Douthett said he had not touched a skateboard for more than 20 years, until his children became interested in the activity.

Clowes said that even though he is getting older and can’t pull off the tricks he did as a teen, the culture around skateboarding is in part what has kept him interested in continuing to buy boards and visit parks where he can. He said the art around skateboarding is a culture all its own.

“Art in skateboarding culture has always been a huge thing, from the designs on the board, the logo; music and skateboarding have always went hand-in-hand,” Clowes said. “There is an authenticity in skateboarding, and that combined with art really influences people on a different level.”

Clowes also said that skateboarding may have been seen as more delinquent in the 1980s and 1990s because the youths boarding around town may have been more troubled. He said that was an aspect he noticed about the culture.

“A lot of times, the kids who find their way to skateboarding, are maybe the ones who didn't quite fit into football or cheerleading, or those normal sports, and still needed a place to commune,” he said. “For them to have an outlet and feel comfortable, that's a huge benefit to them. I looked up to all the older skaters that I grew up around.”

Landon Wike, 14, of Butler, was skating alongside Douthett Tuesday evening. Landon said he has been skating since he was 3 years old, and Clowes said he consistently performs some of the most impressive tricks at Father Marinaro.

Landon said he has been dedicated to skateboarding and improving his skills because of the satisfaction that comes out of pulling off a stunt, especially after falling off the board multiple times.

“With other sports I tried, I don't get the same happiness and comfort with it,” he said. “It's a feeling that's different than anything else.”

Clowes, Douthett and Landon said skateboarding is like a sport you compete in against yourself, because the stunts you perform can be personal and a form of self expression.

“You can never do a trick the same exact way every time,” Landon said. “There's so many things you have to figure out, and if you want to make it look nice it's extra.”