Malarkey Family Gift

The following article appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press February 9, 2014

Family’s $100K gift a boost to Roseville’s Central Park

By Sarah Horner
shorner@pioneerpress.com

POSTED:   02/08/2014 12:17:37 PM CST

UPDATED:   02/08/2014 08:13:08 PM CST

The crown jewel of Roseville’s sprawling park system just got an impressive bump in its rainy-day fund.

Longtime youth coach and park supporter Denny Malarkey and his mother, Muriel Malarkey, donated $100,000 to the Roseville Central Park Foundation, according to Patricia Nygaard, president of the foundation.

The nonprofit works to help maintain the 225-acre park — Roseville’s biggest — which spreads throughout the city’s center.

It is the second-largest donation in the foundation’s 50-year history, Nygaard said, adding that the foundation typically raises $7,000 to $8,000 a year.

The foundation received a $500,000 gift from Muriel Sahlin several years ago that helped build the Muriel Sahlin Arboretum in Central Park.

“Of course, now we’ll need to be looking to name something after the Malarkey family,” Nygaard said. “It’s not every day you get $100,000. … This is a very big deal.”

The Malarkey family moved to Roseville in 1955 and has deep roots in the community.

Denny Malarkey, 71, started regularly coaching youth sports in the area in 1972, including serving a stint as the Roseville Area High School football coach.

He also helped form the city’s Thanksgiving Youth Hockey Tournament and served on the Roseville Parks and Recreation Committee for six years.

He remains a board member for the Central Park Foundation.

“As a family, we have always been big users of the park. … Some of our favorite memories are there,” Malarkey said. “We just feel that the legacy of what Frank Rog built in to Roseville Central Park has added to the quality of life in the overall area. … We’ve wanted to help keep that going, and we’re finally in a financial position to do that.”

Rog was Roseville’s parks and recreation director from 1960 to 1967 and is credited with a lead role in shaping the city’s park system.

It’s too soon to say how the Malarkey donation will be used, especially as the city readies to roll out its $19 million park renewal program passed by the city council in 2012, Nygaard said.

That proposal calls for some remodeling of Central Park’s nature center, as well as the replacement of a section of the park’s boardwalk and upgrades to three picnic shelters and a restroom facility, said Lonnie Brokke, director of the city’s parks and recreation department.

Some lighting upgrades will also take place around Bennett Lake as well as some field work elsewhere.

Systemwide, the proposal aims to replace warming houses at city parks with year-round community gathering spaces, tackle invasive species infestations, upgrade some tennis courts and ice rinks, and replace irrigation systems.

A number of playgrounds will also be replaced, Brokke said.

The overhaul is slated to start this spring and stretch into 2016.

“There are a lot of exciting things happening in the park system right now, so it’s hard to see exactly how this (donation) will be used, but we’ll find a place for it,” Nygaard said.

In addition to Central Park’s arboretum, the foundation has helped build the park’s amphitheater and built and donated a restroom. It’s helping pay to replace signage across the park.

It typically invests about $25,000 a year, Nygaard said.

Support of community organizations such as the Central Park Foundation and the contributions of people such as the Malarkeys have been key to the vitality of the city’s parks over the years, Brokke said.

“Denny has always been very interested in the youth of this community and, boy, has he given a lot of himself,” Brokke said. “Roseville is very fortunate to have him and his family … and we are certainly very happy they thought of the park system.”