Greencastle parks gears up for summer

The Greencastle Park Board held its monthly meeting Thursday, in which it granted approval for several special park requests along with appointing new member Cathy Merrell.

The board started off its brief meeting by welcoming new board member Merrell, who will be taking the place of Kyle Kerrigan who stepped down last month.

Merrel will complete Kerrigan's four-year term, which concludes on Jan. 1, 2017.

Among the parks special use requests was a Zombie Apocalypse Run, which will take place on Saturday, Sept. 21 at 10 a.m.

The run will benefit the Greencastle Housing Authority and will take the same route as the Halloween Fun Run, which is done annually at the park.

The run will start and end at the park and take participants through the DePauw University Campus.

"On the route that you're looking at, it (traffic) shouldn't be that bad," said Parks Director Rod Weinschenk. "You'll have to ask for use of the roadways and a police escort from City Council."

Greencastle Housing Authority Executive Director Nicole Christlieb said that the trial run at the park would be ideal, but hopes to be at the Nature Park the following year.

The cost of the run will be $24 with children 12 and under at $10. Runners are encouraged to wear zombie costumes.

The board also approved Greencastle Middle School to use the pool for its annual staff retreat.

GMS Principal Tamra Walker came before the board asking for special approval to use the pool on Thursday, July 25 from 6-8 p.m.

Walker told the board that they typically have the event at the country club, but due to the pool being closed because of constructions they were forced to reschedule.

Ex officio member Wes Wilson also spoke to the board in hopes of gaining approval for the Putnam County Public Library's use of the park to install its first of hopefully several Little Free Libraries.

PCPL board member Diana LaViolette previously came up with the idea, which involves creating a miniature library, which is erected in yards, bike paths and around the community.

The idea of the Little Free Libraries is for community residents to take a book from the library and replace it with one.

LaViolette's husband, John, has created the first one and the library board thought the park would be the perfect place to try it out.

Wilson gained approval for the library, which will most likely go in front of Weinschenk's office. The location for the Free Little Library was chosen due to residents being able to easily access it by walking or driving, as well as park personnel being able to keep an eye on it.

Finishing off the meeting, Weinschenk along with Assistant Director Troy Scott highlighted several of the upcoming programs at the park, including the Police Boot Camp and SPARK.

Both programs are set to begin on Monday morning at the park, with both having a high pre-registered participant count.

Scott informed the board that the Police Boot Camp this year will have a lowered price of $10 per person, due to all the sponsors. The camp has seen the highest amount of pre-registrations ever and it is expected that more will sign up come the start of camp.

The SPARK program has also seen high numbers with an overwhelming amount of people wanting to be junior leaders.

Scott noted that there was so much interest in being a junior leader that he still has to call people and inform them that they can no longer take on any more people.

So far, there are 110 youngsters who have pre-registered. Scott believes that there will be close to 200 total.

This year the program will be introducing several new activities including a game called pickle ball and several more trips around the community.

Older participants of the SPARK program will also be learning the importance of helping out their community by collecting and delivering donations to the Putnam County Emergency Food Pantry.