Reserved spots are booked, but first-come, first-serve spots still available

BY MINDY KEPFIELD

Staff reporter

Reserve campsites at Marion Reservoir are all booked up, but there are still first-come, first-serve spots available to anyone who wants to enjoy opening weekend of camping.

“We are not 100% full by any means, but we are getting there,” lake manager Kevin McCoy said. “It could be about 75% full by this weekend, but a lot of that could change in a few hours. Right now, we still have some places.”

Gale and Neva Cooper, Marion, and their friend Larry Heidel, Hillsboro, were enjoying the first evening of reopened camping at the reservoir

The Coopers showed up Monday to claim a spot in the shade at one of the lake’s first-serve sites that has electricity and water.

“It will be just like a holiday this weekend,” he said of this weekend’s expected visitors to the lake. “There’s a lot of people out here already.”

Bruce Davidson, Marion, said he was glad to be visiting the lake again after last year’s flooding and this year’s state-mandated shutdowns to combat COVID-19.

Davidson, who works as a project manager in Wichita, likes to divide time between his home in Marion and the lake.

He and partner Kathy Biswell have become known for spending summer evenings on their porch watching television classics on a 32-inch set with neighborhood children.

The size of the crowds the lake will host this summer will be good for the community, he said.

“We consider it lucky that it’s here,” he said. “We knew that it would be open someday. I am sure by this weekend it will be packed. There won’t be an empty site here.”