AS I SEE IT
By Neal A. Shipman
Farmer Editor
The name of Connie Wold and the importance of fitness and wellness are pretty much synonymous in Watford City. After all, it was Connie Wold’s push for a healthy community and the need for some form of fitness center in Watford City that nearly 20 years ago resulted in the formation of the Healthy Hearts Wellness Center.
Connie, at that time, was holding fitness classes in the basement of McKenzie County Bank. And when a church building became available, it was Connie who was pushing the McKenzie County Hospital to consider purchasing the building and converting it into a wellness center. If Connie Wold was anything, she was a true salesman for the need of health and fitness. It was truly her passion and her life’s calling. Her persistence and cajoling of the hospital board to consider adding preventive healthcare to its mix of provided services seemed like a big stretch at that time for a board that knew a lot about healthcare treatment and very little about the role that fitness played in preventive medicine. But it wasn’t too long before Connie had the board convinced that the decision to purchase a building and bring a fitness facility to the county was a good one to make.
And for nearly 20 years, the Healthy Hearts Wellness Center flourished and met the needs of our area. It was an adequate building but it wasn’t an ideal building. But it was better than being in a basement.
Unfortunately for the community and all of us that knew and loved Connie, her life was tragically cut short in a bicycling accident as she was training for a triathlon.
But Connie’s spirit and her love of fitness is going to live on for years to come in the new Connie Wold Wellness Center that is scheduled to open to the public on Feb. 19.
Connie would have been so very proud of the community’s new wellness center that will bear her name. It is no doubt exactly what she would have dreamed of having in Watford City.
And it is a facility that everyone in McKenzie County can be proud of as well. The new facility is state-of-the-art when it comes to a wellness center and features a large and open area for cardio and strength training, a walking/running track, two therapy/endless pools, an aerobics classroom for 25 to 30 participants, a dedicated spinning bike classroom, a dedicated free weight station, expanded locker rooms, outpatient physical therapy, a beverage bar and seating area, and Amy’s Room, a place for children to play while their parents are working out. But the one feature of the new Connie Wold Wellness Center that is going to please everyone is that many portions of the facility will be available for use 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
And what an impressive facility it is! While I haven’t been in many wellness facilities in other communities, I can’t imagine that there are many communities of Watford City’s size that have a health and fitness center of this quality.
Whether or not you have been using the former Healthy Hearts Wellness Center, you need to take time to drop by the new Connie Wold Wellness Center and see for yourself what this new facility can offer you. And who knows, once you walk in the door, you just may decide that this is a place where you could spend some time and improve your health and fitness.
Nothing would have made Connie happier.