Argus Observer Front Page

Getting involved pays off

Adrian residents, community unite to create new park

By Larry Meyer

Argus Observer

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Larry Meyer    Argus Observer

Carl Hill (right) and Dennis Daugherty are at the park in Adrian daily to keep it watered. Hill and Daugherty, with assistance from the Adrian community, helped build a new park in town.

ADRIAN — The Adrian community is enjoying a new park thanks to the foresight of some longtime residents and the support of their neighbors and friends in a project to develop a parcel of ground that sat vacant for several years, serving as a parking lot for trucks.

The phrase “turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse,” is not really an exaggeration in this case, as a lawn and trees are now growing where there used to be just gravel and dirt at an open lot next to Oregon Highway 201, situated between Owyhee and Main streets.

“Eyesore,” is how most people described the location, Carl Hill, an Adrian area native and farmer, said. “It was a truck stop for 30 years,” Dennis Daugherty said jokingly.

The pair said they did not know if grass would grow on the lot or not. “Nothing had ever been grown on it,” Hill said. Their wives, Colleen Daugherty and Jenny Hill, are also partners in the project, Carl Hill said.

However, after only about three weeks of planting, the grass is up and it has been mowed once and more than 20 trees have leafed out.

The lot was purchased from the Corn family.

But the park is only part of the project, which includes the Two Rivers Community Center, which is housed in the former Catholic Church, which the duo also purchased. The small section of the building’s north end houses the Owyhee Watershed Council office, with remaining space available for community events and meetings. There is a kitchen area and meeting hall.

Hill and Daugherty said they wanted to do something for their community.

“We felt this was a need,” Hill said.

But, while Hill and Daugherty began the program and are still the main people behind it, the community is also lending a hand.  People donated their time to help out and are still handing them money. Donated funds for the park and the center are being handled through the Watershed Council, which already has nonprofit status, Hill said.  Elementary school students collected pennies to buy a Christmas tree, which is among those planted, Hill said.  The other trees were offered to families in the community for purchase, and they went very quickly, he said.  Plaques will be placed by the trees to honor those who gave.

The city vacated the alley and the church, as far as the roadway, so the two properties could be joined.

Northwest Farm Credit funded the irrigation systems and the planting of the grass, Hill said.  There is also sprinkler system for the lawn and a drip system for the trees.