Brown Park, 211 E. Sandusky Ave., may soon be the home to a Logan County Law Enforcement Memorial.
Allen Shields, Fraternity Order of Police Hi Point Lodge #60 vice president, and Allen Huffman, FOP Hi Point Lodge #60 secretary, requested the Bellefontaine Joint Recreation District approve a new location, Brown Park, for the proposed memorial.
Superintendent Kris Myers said the board would be happy to house the memorial in Brown Park.
The memorial was originally planned to go in a space in the 100 block of North Main Street, but that property is no longer available.
Huffman said in Brown Park the memorial will still get a lot of visibility.
The memorial will be dedicated to “honor the service and sacrifice of four known Logan County law enforcement officers killed in line of duty,” Shields said.
Those four officers were George Rockwell who died in 1878, Frank Hossler who died in 1956, Sherman Ricketts who died in 1962 and Murray Griffin who died in 1986.
The memorial will also allow for expansion of any other Logan County Law Enforcement line-of-duty deaths.
The estimated cost is between $100,000 and $150,000.
The memorial will be funded through fundraising.
The board approved the new location.
Another memorial item was proposed by Jodi Grannison for two memorial benches in honor of Alvin “Pappy” Warner who passed away in December for Lewis Ratleff Park and either Oakland Square/Powell Park or Southview Park.
Warner was a Bellefontaine Street Department employee for more than 20 years and fostered more than 100 children in 17 years.
The cost for the benches is about a combined $2,000.
Grannison said she needs help with the funds and plans on hosting fundraisers.
Myers tasked Grannison with a written proposal for the benches and said he would be willing to work with her for them.
“I’m open to ideas and suggestions or vendors who want to rent out a space once we get dates and stuff together,” she said.
To donate funds toward the cause Grannison said to contact the Bellefontaine Joint Recreation District at 937-592-3475, herself at her home at 937-593-0004 or herself at her cellphone at 937-441-7423.
The Bellefontaine Joint Recreation District also presented a Volunteer of the Year award to Tom Rose, Hi-Point Baseball Association president and head of the Chieftain Classic Youth Baseball tournament, for his 10 years of service as a volunteer.
“This means everything,” Rose said. “When you do all these things, you do a lot of things that are at times feeling quite thankless. The park board has been fantastic and grateful and appreciative. For me, it’s nice to be acknowledged for something you did, but even if it wasn’t, I would’ve done it anyways. But it’s nice.”
In other business, new sidewalks were recently installed at Play at the Peak Playground, an all-inclusive playground at Mary Rutan Park costing about $7,000.
The board also approved a contract with updated services for Beam and Associates, the park board’s landscape architect for a stair project in Myeerah Nature Preserve.
The project is anticipated to go out to bid sometime within the next month or two and is to be completed by the fall.
Myers said the board has raised $51,000, through private fundraising, in less than a year, needing only $15,000 more to make their match of the 25 percent contribution needed for a Clean Ohio Green Space Conservation Program grant which contributes the remaining 75 percent necessary.