Camp Verde seventh-grader Audrey Johnson is a very active student. She likes to run and play outdoor games with her neighbor, who’s a stand-in grandfather figure to her.
“In fifth grade, her first year we’re on track … and I have an educational background and a coaching background, and I’ve noticed all along, she’s very talented,” her neighbor, John Bassous said. “And she just came over and said, ‘Grandpa John, what can we do to get a real track?’”
For the past year and a half, Bassous has been working with a few other volunteers to form the nonprofit Camp Verde 4 Community, which has the goal to provide that for the school.
“In case you are not aware, our track is dirt,” Camp Verde Unified School District Superintendent Steve Hicks wrote in a recent email.
The track becomes muddy when it rains and it’s not wide enough nor does it have the right-sized radius for the school district to host its own meets.
“Which is kind of sad,” Bassous said. “Our track has gone from a gravel track to a dirt to now, literally every rain, we might as well just use it for swimming.”
In addition to the student athletes in Camp Verde, athletes from the Yavapai-Apache Nation as well as Olympic trainees from Flagstaff train all over Camp Verde, although there isn’t an official community facility for them to train at.
But, another issue is access to bathrooms and water along other places they could run in the town.
“Most schools in this area cannot have them running on their current tracks because of security issues,” Bassous said. “Most schools are locking up their gates once that school bell rings.”
The solution was across the street.
The project CV4C announced includes a football field, outdoor tennis courts, a sand volleyball court and a few other athletic training facilities in addition to the all-weather track.
CVUSD recently released a letter of support for the new stadium project, which announced it was making 20 acres available to the nonprofit for the construction.
The district entered a memorandum of under standing with the non-profit during its Nov. 9 governing board meeting, Hicks said.
“The school district can continue to have their security measures put into place during the day, but we can still have people also use this new facility during the day without any kind of security risk to the school,” Bassous said. “That’s what makes this facility very unique.”
On its website, campverde4community.com, the nonprofit has made promotional videos and explanations for the uses of the facility as well as a preliminary rendering of the project.
“We have put together preliminary plans,” Bassous said. “We have some preliminary engineering. We’ve taken this thing as far as we can take it without spending any money.”
Bassous owns Tierra Verde Builders, the construction company that built Camp Verde Sports Complex. He said the land the school district is allowing them to build on saved them about $1.5 million.
The project itself is now at the point the nonprofit beads to begin the actual fundraising process. The goal is about $4 million, but Bassous said it’s hard to know the exact number because the official construction drawings will cost money, and only after those will he have a more definite number.
“[Johnson] goes, ‘I’m willing to make and sell brownies,’” Bassous said. “That was her heart.”
CV4C in the past month, has contracted with Raise the Bar Consulting, headquartered in Tucson, to help the organization fundraise for the project.
Those interested in donating can also do so through the CV4C website, or by texting “VERDE” to 53-555.
“We have raised about $25,000,” Bassous said “We have put together, again, this partnership with this fundraising company to help us begin to raise the funds needed. We have about $90,000 worth of engineering that’s always already been done at no charge to our group. So, in essence, Camp Verde 4 Community exists to basically raise the funds, get this thing built and then literally just hand it over to the school district.”
While the school district will own the facility, it will be available to the entire Camp Verde community in addition to other athletic groups who may want to use it, such as Olympians from Flagstaff.
“Flagstaff, Arizona sits at7,000 feet above sea level,” the CV4C website states. “Camp Verde, at just over 3,100 feet, is only 49 miles away. The elevation drop of almost 4,000 feet in under an hour has created one of the only true ‘live-high, train-low’ environments in the entire world.”
Living at a higher altitude helps runners increase the red blood cells in their bodies, and training at a lower altitude helps them achieve faster times.
It “will benefit Yavapai-Apache Nation, because they have special events that they like to host,” Bassous said. “We would hope that we can attract the engine of Special Olympics. I happen to have a grandson who is involved in Special Olympics, and I follow him all over the state, whether he’s swimming or running or softball or whatever he’s doing. And we would love this facility to be made available.”
He said, being in construction for as long as he has, has told him that $4 million is among the smaller price tags for a development like this, so he has hopes to get the project underway soon.
Projects can be phased out to make the construction more efficient, he said.
“I’m just using round numbers, [but] … if the first million came in, we could actually get started on moving the dirt,” he said. “Because the way you get permits, you can actually get permits to move dirt before you actually submit for permits for anything else.”
Bassous said he hopes to break ground before the end of 2026.
“We/they have a long road ahead,” Hicks wrote, “but we appreciate their efforts and … we have to start somewhere.”
