In the past two years, Kansas has added just above 230 Frisbee Golf courses to the map, and Southeast has decided to add one more to the number.  

While the idea of establishing a course only started out as lunch small talk among a few teachers, the idea quickly sprung into a big project funded by a $5,000 Kansas Health Foundation grant. 

The brainstorming teachers decided that a disc golf course at SES would fit perfectly into Mr. Chance Ptacek’s PE class curriculum and would be a good project for Mrs. Tammy Streit’s geometry students. With these ideas in mind, Ptacek and Streit leaped, and the plan was initiated. 

“Mr. Stumpf had shared information about grants available from the Greater Salina Community Foundation. An application was submitted. The Foundation came through for us, providing the entire $5,000 needed for the project,” Streit said. 

To apply for the grant, Streit designed a project for her high school geometry students that helped establish a proposal for the frisbee golf course. In this project, the students had to research the game of disc golf, explain the benefits of the game, select the best basket for our purpose, determine the size and type of tee pad, and choose a design for the course’s tee signs. 

After gathering this information, the students compiled their research to put together four separate course proposals that included estimated costs. The geometry students then compared the four courses and arrived at a final decision regarding a tentative proposal. Now that the grant has been secured, a final course map is being constructed. 

Along with the geometry class, drafting and shop students have also participated in the establishment of Southeast’s future disc golf course. The drafting students have been in charge of creating the tee signs, and shop students will aid in the placement of the baskets and tee signs.

Following are the plans that are soon to be implemented:

1. Place flags in the field to mark proposed basket placement for evaluation.
2. Actuate local disc golf league members to do trial runs on the course.
3. Finalize the map.
4. Purchase disc golf baskets and concrete.

When the above is complete, Mrs. Petty’s shop classes will assist in installing the baskets, Mr. Emme’s drafting and shop classes will design and cut tee signs on the CNC machine, and Mr. Ptacek’s Lifetime Fitness classes will begin using the course.

After the course is finalized, Southeast students will be able to enjoy the course with friends and classmates, and the course will also be open to the community.

“The course will be available to all our students K-12 with younger students just throwing from locations closer to the baskets,” Streit said. 

Streit said tournaments will provide some challenges.

“We will be able to run tournaments on our course, (but) a normal Disc Golf Course is 18 holes while ours is 12. So, there are two options. We can run a tournament where the 12 are played through twice with a break for lunch and then 12 more played in the afternoon. Or, we can put in six temporary baskets when we want to host a tournament,” Streit said.

Streit said she could envision some students becoming passionate about disc golf and joining a league.  

“There is a Disc Golf League in Salina, and our students would be able to join that league,” she said.