CHADRON, Neb. - Residents of Chadron seeking a workout soon won't have to go to the gym to build their muscle strength.

Thanks to a $10,000 Blue Health Advantage Wellness grant, formally delivered Tuesday to members of the community's Lifespan Wellness Team, exercise machines will be installed this fall at three different outdoor locations in town.

The equipment will include a two-person vertical bench-press machine, a rowing machine, a cross-country ski machine, a four-person leg-press machine and a stair climber, and the sites will be linked by a walking trail, according to Jay Sutliffe, a Chadron State College instructor and member of the wellness group.

"Since people will be doing aerobic exercise to get to there, most of the equipment will be muscle strengthening," Sutliffe said.

Chadron's $10,000 award was the largest of nine grants awarded this year for wellness projects in Nebraska communities outside the Omaha and Lincoln areas by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska, according to Jack Mill, chairman of the insurance company. Mill traveled to Chadron to present the grant.

"Wellness is a significant issue in the whole country, not just Nebraska," Mill said. "We think the best solutions come from the local community. We all have responsibility for our own wellness."

For mutual insurance companies such as Blue Cross Blue Shield, promoting wellness and physical activity makes sense, because it benefits customers by improving their health and reducing their insurance premiums, Mill said.

The ad hoc Lifespan Wellness Team laid the groundwork for this year's grant in 2006, when it organized a program called 'Walkabout' that encouraged residents to join in a competition with eight other communities to see who could walk the most miles over several months, Sutliffe said. Although Chadron did not win the contest, residents enthusiastically joined the effort, and many people strapped on pedometers provided to measure their mileage, he said.

That success helped land the current grant, because "it showed collaboration with the community," Celann LaGreca, vice president of community investment for Blue Cross Blue Shield, said.

Collaboration was also evident at Tuesday's event, which included presentation of awards to local businesses that participated in a "Well Workplace" initiative, sponsored by the Panhandle Public Health District, and the award of a $500 grant to Chadron's East Ward Elementary School for taking part in the "N-Lighten Kids" exercise initiative sponsored by the Nebraska Sports Council.

A $500 grant from Western Community Health Resources, which will be used to create the walking trails that will link the exercise equipment, is also a joint effort, Sutliffe said. That project involved Chadron High School math students, who mapped and measured the trails, and Chadron State College graphic-arts students, who are creating a brochure showing the various routes and distances, he said.

The city of Chadron is involved in both projects and has provided help in the placement of the exercise pods and trail routes, and Pine Ridge Job Corps will help install the equipment, Sutliffe said.

The wellness team, which has now been incorporated into the city-sponsored Chadron Community Recreation organization, hopes to have the exercise equipment installed and the trail brochure completed by late fall.

And the group views the project as only the start of an effort to provide more opportunities for residents to stay active and healthy, Sutliffe said. "This is phase one of an outdoor fitness center. We hope to add more sites," he said.