For the first time in more than 20 years, the Wright City Parks Department won’t be running a summer co-ed softball league.

“We can’t find the girls to come and play anymore. There just isn’t enough of them,” said Wright City Parks Director Curt Kehoe.

“I don’t know if it’s that there’s other things to do now. We’ve noticed this dwindling in the last few year, the number of girls playing softball as adults,” Kehoe commented. “Even our girls playing softball at the youth level, I’m only going to have two softball teams this year.”

He said it’s possible a growing interest in soccer might be drawing some girls away from softball, and that girls make up a disproportionate number of the growing soccer program in Wright City.

Still, Kehoe said he’s disappointed to see the adult softball program declining, as one of the people who helped found it 25 years ago.

“I started it way back when we opened Ruge Park,” Kehoe said. “It was whole families full of cousins, and there was always plenty enough girls to play around here.”

For next year, Kehoe said he is examining the possibility of a men’s softball league.

“The girls can still come and play, but we don’t have to play by co-ed rules that way,” he explained, meaning equal numbers of men and women wouldn’t need to be fielded on each team.

For youth sports, Kehoe said he has multiple local tee ball, baseball and softball teams registered with the regional New Horizons youth baseball league.

“Right now I have about 130 kids signed up,” he said. “For soccer, we have about 70 kids signed up to play.”