PBATF began with a small group of dedicated pickleball players …
It all started in 2007 when Sharon Sacco, a former resident, brought the game of pickleball back from St George, Utah, and organized a demo day at Harmon Park. She was joined by Jim Boyle, Gary Robbins, and Jeri Robbins who had been trying to organize a group in Hagerman, without success.
To get things started, Sharon, Gary, and Jeri obtained permission from the City of Twin Falls to paint lines for three courts at Harmon Park and taught a fledgling group of 6 or 8 people to play.
When Sharon returned to St George in the fall, Jim Boyle volunteered to be our first USA Pickleball Ambassador and kept us organized and playing at Harmon Park. The first regular players were Jim Boyle, Sharon Ross, Walt Schlittenhard, Judi Thietten, Jean Crandall, Fran Best, Skip and Gwen Leone, Sheri Wills, J.D. Shew, Shirley Baumert, and Sharon Johnson.
In 2010, Jim left the USA Ambassadorship due to a family illness and asked Judi Thiettan to fill the spot.
We were then using the Hilltop Adventist School gym for a few years in the wintertime until school lockdowns happened. Then the kind people at Crossroads United Methodist Church in Kimberly let us use their gym where we had use of one court. That’s where we invented the Crazy Sixes game with three on each side.
By 2014 our group had grown to 12-15 players, and Dennis Bowyer, then Park & Recreation Director for the City of Twin Falls, gave us the use of the unused Oregon Trail tennis courts in South Park. We were able to create five usable courts there and enjoyed it very much. Jerry Michener also built a relationship with the owner of Soccer Time in 2014 and secured the shared indoor space with three courts so we could play year-round.
In February 2015, a pickleball demo was presented to a senior CSI exercise class by Jerry, Skip, Gwen, Jean & Judi. It was a big hit! As a result, the group experienced overwhelming growth of 300% in the six months following that demo. We realized it was now time to formally organize.
By creating an official club, we could now facilitate accountable methods of working with the City of Twin Falls to create future facilities for this group and a permanent/dedicated place to play pickleball. So, in June 2015, we officially became the Pickleball Association of Twin Falls with our own tax ID as a 502c3 charitable organization. A temporary board of founders was then formed with Jim Boyle, President, Walt Schlittenhard as Vice President, Judi Thietten, Secretary, and Jerry Michener, Treasurer.
Six months later, we had our first election of board members in October, 2015, and elected the following people;
President: Jim Boyle
Vice President: Judi Thietten
Secretary: Janine Gallian and Ginny Riffle as co-secretaries
Treasurer: P. A. Melnyk and Stephanie Lizardo as co-treasurers
Subsequent Presidents have been Judi Thietten, Walt Schlittenhard, Sheri Wills, Jill Skeem, Ryan Heider, G.B. Sneed, and Michael Scott.
Work began right away on showing the City the need for permanent courts for the growing number of players of this new addictive sport. It was largely the efforts of Stacy McClintock, Recreation Supervisor of Twin Falls Parks and Rec. that work began toward Frontier Park’s 12-court pickleball complex. She had just returned from a sports conference in Las Vegas when she told Judi Thietten, USAPA Ambassador, about the unused tennis courts at Frontier and how it was now her dream to turn those into pickleball courts.
That dream was partially realized in June 2017 when Phase I with six state-of-the-art pickleball courts was completed. Lights on the first six courts were added under the leadership of PBATF President, Ryan Heider in 2021.
Phase II with six more courts was largely completed in September 2022, and we continue to work to improve and grow pickleball in Twin Falls with the help of our growing membership.