Cloverdale Community Park

The newly renovated Cloverdale Community Park has designated the Alicia Bishop Walk Path. At the ceremony were Cloverdale Civic League treasurer Diane Ladd (left), vice president Lori Hoffa, president Angela Ladd, Alicia Bishop's cousin Toni Sanders, master gardener Cindi Sanders and park board president Rod Garrett. (courtesy photo provided by ANGELA LADD)

In 2005, Alicia Bishop was involved in a boating accident that left her in a coma doctors did not know whether she would ever recover from.

The naming of the "Alicia Bishop Walk Path" at Cloverdale Park is meant to honor, inspire and motivate Bishop, as well as all those who use the walking path, as she continues her recovery in Lebanon, Tenn.

Bishop not only came out of her coma, but has since recovered beyond what doctors told her family was possible nine years ago.

"It changed her life forever," Alicia's cousin Toni Sanders said at the ceremony that not only honors the long road to recovery that Bishop has embarked upon, but also the final phase of a complete renovation of Cloverdale Park.

Angela Ladd of the Cloverdale Civic League described the long journey of transforming the park from being run-down, not safe and certainly not "kid-friendly;" to the clean, functioning park, filled with children that it has now become.

The nearly $200,000 renovation was paid for by grants, fundraising and a generous donation of land from First National Bank that, upon the property's sale, gave the CCL the last big push it needed to finish a project that was more than two years in the making.

According to Ladd, there were lots of doubts of whether such an ambitious goal could be achieved, something that obviously didn't matter to Ladd or the other members of the CCL.

"Our park board has done such a fantastic job, and the town as well," Ladd said regarding not just the renovations but also general maintenance and upkeep at the park.

Bishop, while not a Cloverdale resident, has family connections to the town which has recently honored her impressive recovery.

Sanders once owned a gym in Cloverdale called "The Emerging Butterfly," which she named after viewing Bishop's coma as a "cocoon" from which she would eventually emerge.

It was a testament to Sanders' faith in her cousin's recovery.

And the naming of the "Alicia Bishop Walk Path" is not just a manifestation of Bishop's road to recovery, but of the Cloverdale Park's recovery as well.