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Tony Gwynn memorial drive tops goal

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The campaign to raise $150,000 in private funds to build a memorial honoring San Diego Padres great Tony Gwynn reached its goal over the weekend. The accomplishment was announced Monday morning during a ceremonial groundbreaking event near the Lake Poway ballfield.

During the event Mayor Steve Vaus said that an additional $10,000 has been pledged by the San Diego Padres, bringing the the total amount raised to $160,043.

The event occurred the day before Major League Baseball’s annual All-Start Game at Petco Park. Several hundred people, including members of the Gwynn family, major donors, summer camp kids and baseball fans attended the groundbreaking. A half-dozen television stations showed up as well.

Gwynn, 54, died on June 14, 2014, following a battle with cancer. The 30-year Poway resident played as a Padre for 20 years after making his first appearance for the club in 1982. He retired with a .338 batting average and over 3,141 hits in 2,400 games. Gwynn was inducted into the Padres Hall of Fame upon his retirement in 2001 and the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007.

At the groundbreaking his widow, Alicia, thanked the Poway community for its years of support for her husband, noting that residents allowed him to be a “normal person … a family man, just Tony.”

“Even after Tony passed you were there for us,” she said.

City councilmembers earlier this year endorsed a bronze sculpture design submitted by Texas sculptor Seth Vandable, showing Gwynn raising his cap to the crowd while holding his young daughter. The design was one of about 30 submitted by artists from across the country and was recommended for approval by a selection panel consisting of Gwynn family members, local art experts and Vaus. The bronze statue will take about six to nine months to complete. Poway-based San Diego Granite has agreed to donate materials for a small plaza around the statue and revealed a concept drawing on Monday. Other firms are donating landscaping and construction services.

Vaus noted it was almost two years to the day since he proposed that Poway pay tribute to Gwynn. An original city-proposed design, involving a bronze plaque on a boulder near the ballfield’s refreshment stand, was rejected in May 2015 as not being significant enough of a memorial.

Memorial site work is expected to start by the end of the year.

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