A decade of searching for sites, planning, fundraising, collaboration and hard work are finally coming to fruition with the construction of the new Mathews Family YMCA at Hudgins. Exterior walls are nearly completed, interior walls have been installed, and contractors were busy last week running electric wires and hanging drywall.

Bush Construction vice president Linwood Burton was on site overseeing the work, along with YMCA board members Dick Phillips and Buzz Busby and YMCA director Sheila Pillath.

Burton, who is in charge of the project, said he and his wife, Mary Digges, were honoring her late father, John Digges, by completing the job he left in their hands when he died two years ago. John Digges, who lived at Bohannon, was serving on the fundraising committee for the Y when he told his son-in-law, “You need to go help these people.”

“I’m not doing it anymore,” said Digges, according to Burton. “I’m passing the ball on to you.”

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