Keyhole to reopen doors next week

By Jason E. Silvers

Herald -- Tribune

Fort Scott, Kan. -- The Keyhole Youth Center in Fort Scott is getting a facelift before the facility opens its doors to area youth next week.

The center, located at 1002 S. Main St., Fort Scott, is a safe haven and recreational center for area teenagers that opened in 1992. The facility has recently been undergoing physical changes to improve the building's image before the beginning of the new school year, which got underway for most area schools last week.

Several local volunteers, including Fort Scott Police Department Lt. Travis Shelton and his wife, have been working to repaint the facility's interior in preparation for an open house for the youth center at 7 p.m., on Thursday, Aug. 31, Keyhole board member Joy O'Neal said.

"We've still got a little trimming left to do," O'Neal said. "We'd like to invite the community and have people see what the facility has available for our youth."

The center, which receives visits from about 150 kids each week, features several activities and games that young people can participate in, including a pool table, an entertainment area with a large screen television, an informational center that contains religious materials and information about the effects of drug and alcohol use on young people, video game consoles and games, and computers with Internet access.

The center also contains a food and refreshment bar.

"We don't get as many (kids) as we'd like to," O'Neal said.

Center officials have, over the years, added different items to the center in response to requests from youth in Fort Scott and surrounding areas, in an attempt to get more youth to spend time at the center, as opposed to participating in illegal criminal activities, O'Neal said.

The center exists to provide positive recreational activities for area youth, she said.

"We like to find out what they (youth) like to have," she said. "What you hear all the time is, there's nothing to do in Fort Scott. Well, the truth is, there are things to do, we just need to take advantage of it."

The Keyhole also has a new director, Amanda Brown, Fort Scott, who is trying to re-design a youth advisory board that once existed to present ideas and feedback for the facility's board of directors to work with in improving the center, O'Neal said.

Brown, who attended Fort Scott schools and now teaches in Frontenac, will have assistance from another Fort Scott resident, Laurie Uhler, in putting the plan together, she said.

After the center opens next week, it will operate from 3 to 9 p.m. Monday - Friday, and from 5 to 10 p.m. on Saturday.

On Thursday, after the Fort Scott High School Tiger football team practice, a pep rally will take place on Main street in front of the Keyhole building, which is across the street from Fort Scott High School.

FSHS officials will have food available for members of the football team following the team's practice on Thursday, O'Neal said. The pep rally is scheduled to begin when the football team arrives, she said.

The Key Charitable Trust provided $100,000 in 1992 to open the youth center, and still provides about $25,000 each year to continue its operations.