PLATTE COUNTY – The Platte County Parks and Recreation department has announced its annual district baseball and softball skills clinics will happen this year with COVID-19 restrictions in place.
The clinics will be ongoing from May 26 – June 11 each Tuesday and Thursday.
Due to the coronavirus restrictions, the Parks and Rec department has set a maximum of eight kids per session with a maximum of two coaches in each session. Sessions begin at 9 a.m. and will run throughout the day until 7 p.m.
Softball clinic blocks will be divided into age groups for 6-8-year olds and 9-12-year olds. For baseball clinic blocks, the age divisions will be 4-5-year olds and 6-9-year olds.
Coaches for the clinics include Paul Gallegos and C.A. Thomas – baseball, and Jodie Fitzwater and Alise Madsen – softball. Kassidy O’Harrow and Steve Pollock will serve as floater coaches.

“We are going to do a baseball program and still do our social distancing,” said Kassidy O’Harrow. “We can’t use the dugouts because you can’t be less than six feet away from each other.
"I set this program up before the governor said he opened it up to groups of 25 people. I set it up for different times and different age groups so that we could keep all the numbers in the half hour time slots to eight kids and two coaches.”
O’Harrow said spaces in each time slot are limited. Registration is available online at www.plattecountyrecreation.com
“Typically, this about the same time as we usually start our baseball and softball programs," O'Harrow said. "The clinic will run similar to our normal program. I’m really running this right now to kind of give people something, and we are still hoping that we can run our regular league programs where we can break out into teams and have coaches and uniforms and have their own practices.”
The program is free to participants and is fully funded by the Parks and Recreation Department.
Swimming Pool
Although the Platte County Health Department has stipulated social distancing must be maintained, both Wheatland and Guernsey pools are looking to open sometime around June 1.
“We can have 25 people in the pool area, which includes the lifeguards,” O’Harrow said. “Our guards will count people and then we will have to manage the bath houses a little more because we have to make sure people are keeping their distance out there as well.”
Masks at this point are recommended but not required.
O’Harrow doesn’t know at this point if swimming lessons will be offered this summer, in light of the no contact rules.