DEXTER — Robert Leathers of Ithaca, N.Y, a nationally known creative playground architect, was in Dexter Friday for Design Day. During the day, he and his assistant, Tricia Mandul, interviewed area schoolchildren to get their ideas on what plans should be incorporated into the proposed Dexter Community Playground. Construction of the facility is being planned for September this year.

The day began with a trip to the proposed site for the new playground, Crosby Park, where Leathers and members of the committee measured the site and discussed ground work.

Later in the morning, Leathers and Mandul met with schoolchildren in their classrooms so that the architects could find out from the children what they want their playground to look like.

After these meetings, Leathers began drawing a rough schematic design of the playground. During the day, the children met with him and discussed his progress on the design. Some of the ideas incorporated into the final design included a mirror maze, a castle and a dragon, made out of wood.

During the afternoon, Leathers met with members of the core committee to discuss the resposibilities of each department chair. He commented on the originality of some of the ideas offered by the children during the day.

That evening, there was a public meeting in the gymnasium with several hundred people attending. Leathers unveiled his blueprint of the playground, and schoolchildren opened the program with a song. Leathers showed a slide show featuring his other projects and talked about his plans for the Dexter playground.

Leathers said the Dexter playground would be halfway between the size of the Exeter playground and the one in Bangor. He said it would take five days to build the playground using entirely a work force of volunteer labor. Some 500 residents of Dexter will need to help in the construction project, he said.

It has been estimated that the playground will cost $40,000 to build. If volunteer labor was not used, he said, the price tag for the project could run as high as $120,000.

Construction is being planned for early fall. Leathers also is involved in designing playgrounds all over the world including two in Australia, one in the Soviet Union and one in Israel.