FAIRBURY - Designing a professional golf course is typically painstaking, meticulous work. But making a miniature golf course for all ages to enjoy can be a perfect task for a group of high-achieving students to tackle.
And that's exactly what one club of kids at Fairbury Public Schools has created this year.

A crew of 18 students from 2nd to 6th grades in Fairbury's High Ability Learners Club spent part of this year planning, designing, constructing, and, finally, playing on, their own 9-hole mini golf course.

Some parents and other educators assisted with some of the construction work, but as club coordinator Adrian Bowen put it, the students are the brains of the operation.

"It’s really neat to see how their minds work," she said. "And when you give them a problem and just give them time to work through it and you stand back and listen, just to see how they approach the problem from a solution-oriented mindset and how they work through it is very humbling, it’s very interesting, and I learn from them every day."

The students' designs for the nine holes were inspired by history, nature and fantasy, and they were tasked with developing the obstacles all the players would have to overcome.

In the past, the Hal Club has created events like a Shark Tank or an Escape Room, but only the families of the team members got to experience those. So this year the goal was to create something the entire local community could enjoy.

"We wanted to do something to where we could bring the community in and bring the community to school and build those relationships, so that was the whole thing about the mini golf course was creating an opportunity for families to come and spend some time together," Bowen said.

The golf course was set up inside the old Fairbury school gym in the administration building on K Street and will again be open for the public to play next Friday evening from 6 to 9 p.m. and Saturday afternoon from 2 to 5.

"I’m so incredibly proud of our community of educators who have helped support this. We hope to get as many people as we can in to celebrate the work of our students here in Fairbury," Bowen said.

But this won't be a one-time thing: the school district already has plans in place to break the course back out for other school and community events so that future Fairbury students and families can enjoy the work these high-ability students have achieved.