Freddie Williams remembers teaching his son to skate about 20 years ago at Skate Zone on North Lehmberg Road.

Now, Williams said his 25-year-old son can outskate him, but that hasn’t stopped him from trying to keep up.

“I hung in (Skate Zone) … every weekend,” Williams said. “… (At) one time, boy, I used to come like two or three times a weekend. That’s when my legs were in good shape. But then my legs got older. I had to cut it down to just one time a week.”

When he heard Skate Zone would be hosting its final Soul Night Sunday, Williams said he and his son knew they had to come out for one final weekend to roll around the rink and take in the space where Williams met so many of his friends over the years.

Williams was one of dozens who gathered under the flashing lights and spinning disco balls of the Skate Zone rink Sunday to soak in one of the last nights before it closes Tuesday.

Dale Taylor, owner of Skate Zone, said the building is being redeveloped into a baseball and softball batting cage and training area.

The announcement of the rink’s closure came near the beginning of August on Skate Zone’s Facebook page, and since then Rick “Don’t Go” Mason, local emcee and DJ, said he had received several messages from residents asking him to emcee one last Soul Night at the rink.

Mason said he was happy to oblige and got to work with Taylor to coordinate a proper sendoff for residents who had frequented the rink.

Soul Night was a signature event at the rink for years, with Mason spinning tracks that were hits during the disco era and even opening up the dance floor during the night for those less inclined to skating.

“Dale and I … have so many memories of creating and putting things together with this particular Soul Night,” Mason said. “… People were calling me after they found out that the Skate Zone was closing, and saying, ‘Hey, Rick Mason, if anybody can give us the last finale, the last Soul Night, it’ll be you to make it happen.’ … We collabed together and came up with a way to … be able to give the people one last night of enjoyment and memories.”

Taylor said the decision to close the rink after 46 years in Columbus was difficult because of how much the rink not only meant to generations of residents but also to his own family.

“My youngest daughter had her first birthday at Skate Zone,” Taylor said. “… I did have one other daughter that ran the Skate Zone … and she passed away (in 2019). She had a brain tumor and didn’t survive it. … We had her funeral at the skating rink, and it was well attended by the community, because she had touched a lot of people there.”

Getting things rolling

Taylor said the skating rink, which opened as Skating Odyssey on Highway 45 in 1980, began as a dream to bring family fun to the area.

He saw the need for a space catered to skating in Columbus because of its popularity at the time and hoped to draw on families in the area.

Taylor said that once it got started, it didn’t take long for the rink to outgrow its first building, so he built Skate Zone in 1995 off North Lehmberg Road to meet the growing demand.

That Columbus rink served as the spark for Taylor to expand and create a fleet of rinks nearby, including in Starkville and Alabama.

“Columbus was a good town for us,” Taylor said. “It in a way was the rink that helped me build all the other rinks that I had. Then (at) one time, I had about six rinks that I had either interest or full ownership in, and it all traced back to Columbus being a success.”

From 1995 until about 2019, Taylor said Skate Zone became more than just a skating rink. It grew into a space where the community gathered for birthdays, proms, family reunions and other events.

“We just tried to make everybody feel welcome and have a piece of our entertainment there,” Taylor said. “We literally built a skatehouse for everybody, and at that time that wasn’t necessarily (how) everybody else ran their business, but we tried to promote skating to everybody.”

Jordan Vernon, Taylor’s first cousin who also learned to skate at the rink, said he spent much of his childhood at Skate Zone.

Vernon said he remembers the nights of all-night skating and games of tag he and his friends used to play at the rink and will always treasure those memories.

“When I was a kid … this place would be so packed you couldn’t even skate half the time,” Vernon said. “It would just be like we’d all be bunched up together, and now ever since, like video games and just digital movies and stuff have come out, it’s definitely declined.”

Even though it won’t be exactly the same, Taylor hopes to keep some of that Skate Zone magic alive when the building reopens as D-BAT Baseball and Softball Academy in December.

“I hope some of our customers will transition over; baseball and softball (are) in a growth mode, and all my grandkids are real big into the sports and stuff,” Taylor said. “… So we’re hoping that we can keep our story going with that.”