Our History
In 1967 a group of Midland Leaders came together with 54 objectives of what was needed to bring more families to reside in Midland. All those objectives have been met with the exception of three: a zoo, a man-made lake and a community tennis center.
In a 2006 study, it was found that a city should have one tennis court for every 2,000 citizens (in addition to those owned by schools). A city the size of Midland should have 55 public tennis courts by 2010.
In 1996, Jim Henry, then president of the Casa de Amigos board, worked with Lael Cordes-Pitts, Executive Director for Casa de Amigos and Luis Valdez, a local tennis pro, to form Reachout Tennis with Casa de Amigos. At the same time, United States Tennis Association, United States Pros Tennis Association, United States Pros Registry and Tennis Industry Association approved a nationwide tennis blitz to help grow the game of tennis. Tennis Associations from major cities throughout the United States from California, to Florida, from New York to Texas applied for grants that would help grow the game of tennis. The Reachout Tennis Program with Casa de Amigos applied for The Tennis Blitz Grant and through several rounds of interviews received approval for the grant.
During that time, the staff of Casa de Amigos along with the director of Reachout Tennis came up with promotional events in Midland, Odessa and the whole Permian Basin that would introduce tennis to thousands of youth and adults to the game of tennis through events such as: Tennis Carnivals, Tennis Block Parties, Tennis School Assemblies and tennis in-services. We also developed tennis sessions with YMCA, Camp Fire, Greater Ideal Baptist Church, Boys and Girls Club, Hillcrest School, St. Ann’s Catholic School and other community-based organizations in the area. It is estimated that nearly 15,000 students and their families have been served through these outreach programs. The individuals represent a broad range of ages, ethnicities, and geographic communities in a 250,000 square mile territory of West Texas with a population of 350,000.
At the same time that USTA was pushing to grow the game, Midland had lost 30 tennis courts. There were several reasons for the lost of those courts throughout the years, but the fact of the matter was that now that numbers were increasing, there were no courts to promote the programs that needed to be promoted to continue the growth. That is when Jim Henry and a group of new Midland Leaders came together in November of 2004 and saw that the need was still there for a community tennis center. The board of Midland Tennis Center started working on ideas, what programs to promote, number of courts and layout of the facility. In 2007 Midland Tennis Center received its 501(c)(3) non-profit status, therefore being called Midland Tennis Center Inc.
On October 17th, 2010 a public announcement was made of the new name and logo for the tennis center. So the dream of 1967 will come to reality in August of 2011 and the tennis center will be known as “BUSH TENNIS CENTER.” We are going to accomplish the goal set 45 years ago.
We don’t use tennis for the sport alone but as a vehicle to address the objectives of our mission.