Vaishali Patel
The Union-Recorder
MILLEDGEVILLE —
One woman’s athletic passion for mats, bars and balance beams has led her to open up her very own gymnastics facility, Lake Country Gymnastics.
When the 8,500 square-foot space became available above the Baker Distributing Company building in the Columbia Center, Missy Swicord and her husband, Dray, knew it was the perfect place to provide interested gymnasts from Baldwin County and surrounding counties a world of growing opportunities.
“I fell in love with the space. It’s kind of cool because it has all the windows and it’s very industrial,” she said.
Swicord’s interest for tumbling began at an early age and continued through her college years. In 2008, she was inducted to the Georgia College Athletic Hall of Fame.
“I graduated from [Georgia College & State University] back when we had a gymnastics team in 1991. I was a six time All-American [gymnast] and then I went on to teach at a local gym. I kind of had a passion for that, and that’s where my love was,” Swicord said. “My [8-year-old] daughter started taking gymnastics four years ago, and it was hard for me to sit and watch other people coach her. I wanted to give my daughter an opportunity to train in a facility under instructors that she could probably one day become a competitive gymnast — that’s my drive.”
While in the current process of organizing and repurposing the area, Swicord said brand new equipment, including a 42 by 42 competition cheer mat, competition uneven parallel bars and other training mats should arrive by July 12. The new gymnastic facility will partner with other Columbia Center businesses for a live remote in mid-July to allow the community to tour the center before opening in August.
“Once the equipment is in, I do plan on opening a couple of days in the evening to let people tour, ask questions and register,” she said. “I have tremendous support group from the community. It’s a big facility with state-of-the-art equipment.”
Registration for the upcoming two summer four-hour clinics is ongoing. A gymnastics clinic will kick-off July 24 for interested children ages 6 and up, and a tumbling and cheerleading clinic will begin July 31 with classes in the morning for 6- to 10-year-old athletes and evening sessions for those 11 and older.
“I already have several students signed up. It’s $100 for the four-hour sessions, and those that sign up for the fall session in August, I will waive the $25 annual registration fee,” Swicord said. “My intentions are to have eight to 10 students per instructor. I’m shooting for a start-up with 150 students, but space will be limited.”
With the help of a former Georgia College gymnastics coach leading classes, Swicord’s focus is to strictly teach the fundamentals of gymnastics, not dance or karate.
“I think we lose a lot of children in surrounding counties to cheerleading. Instead of traveling to Macon or Athens to get that good training facility, I’m going to provide it for them,” she said. “I don’t want to start out with a competition team, but hopefully we can develop good little tumblers or gymnasts for competition cheering. There’s lots of talent in the Milledgeville area, and I plan on tapping into that.”
For more information about the summer clinics or to tour the facility located at 611 Hammock Road, call (478) 363-5386 or e-mail lakecountrygymnastics@windstream.net.
