MACKSVILLE – The City of Macksville was the winner of American State Bank and Trust’s first “Growing for Good” contest this spring. The city will receive a $5,000 prize to help improve its city park. 

“The idea of the contest was to help improve a Kansas community,” said bank CEO Greg Quarles. “We believe that the best way to be a community bank, is to be a part of the community. We live here and work here too, so Kansas communities are important to us.”

Macksville Pride, a local organization of involved citizens, will be managing the park improvement project. Shelly Evans is a part of that team and said, “The city park is one of the beautiful pieces of history we still have left, and in honor of the 100-year anniversary, we want to make it more accessible to everyone. Our playground is limited and we want to add equipment that could provide play areas for children as well as updating for safety. We are so happy that we won the contest and look forward to working with the bank on this project. It is wonderful to have partners like American State Bank that believe in community.”

The contest rules invited anyone in the state of Kansas to submit ideas for how they could improve their communities. “We received a lot of entries and it was a difficult decision,” said Terri Maus, director of marketing. “We chose the Macksville city park because they are celebrating their 100-year anniversary this year and we know that this park can really benefit the whole community. We are going to work with the residents to make their park a place that they can be proud of where they want to spend time in with their families.”

The work on the park will begin later this summer and Macksville Pride members hope to be done by fall.