PENDLETON — The 25 Pendleton Heights students responsible for creating Falls Bark Dog Park have graduated and moved on, but several are going to be in town Saturday, March 9, to celebrate the new amenity.
“We are going to have the big public grand opening,” which will include speeches and a ribbon-cutting, said Denise McKee, Falls Park administrative assistant, who recently helped found the Friends of Falls Park group.
The grand opening and dedication ceremony is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m.
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Logan Marshall, 18 — a Purdue University freshman who last year as Pendleton Heights High School senior helped head up the project — plans to speak at the grand opening.
“It’s exciting for all of us to finally have it completed,” Marshall said on Sunday.
He said he plans on telling how the project got done, “and thanking the sponsors, for sure.”
The dog park is a 175-by-175-foot fenced-in area located in a field off Falls Park Drive, just west of the railroad tracks near Pendleton Sport Complex. It offers people and their pooches an area for free-range fun.
The dog park is square, with fencing dividing it diagonally into two triangular areas.
The entrance is located at the northeast corner, where there’s a gate through which people can enter into a small area and close the gate behind them; they then can choose which of the two triangular sections to enter, through another gate.
In addition to representatives from sponsors, including the Kiwanis and Lions clubs, McKee will speak at the grand opening on behalf of the park.
A dog park was in the park department’s five-year master plan that ends this year, McKee said.
The dog park is a summa cum laude project of the Pendleton Heights Class of 2018.
The students raised about $15,000, which paid for most of the six-feet- tall chain link fencing; the park department has chipped in about $1,500 and some labor to the cause.
The dog park, which is one of the last projects shepherded by recently retired park Superintendent Ron Barnhart, has been open for several weeks. Signage and other details were finished during the past week.
The completion of the dog park did get delayed, Marshall said, from the end of his senior year to now, because of state permits the park department realized were needed and which took extra months to obtain.
The main dog park sign includes the name of the park in large green letters, with a nod to the students: “PHHS Summa Cum Laude Project / Class of 2018.”
The sign also includes an embossed-style image of Sugar, the Labrador/Harrier mix belonging to Pendleton Heights student Mia Meiers. Sugar won a contest during the students’ first fundraiser for the dog park, becoming the project’s mascot.
Marshall said since being at Purdue, he’s noticed signs around campus that credit contributions from various people, and this gave him a greater appreciation for what it means to be memorialized on the dog park sign.
“I’m excited that our name is going to be on it,” Marshall said. “I think it is interesting that my class has its own mark in Pendleton.”
At least six other former Pendleton Heights classmates have indicated they will attend the grand opening, he said.
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Pendleton-Fall Creek Board of Parks and Recreation recently began work on developing its next five-year master plan, said Denise McKee, park administrative assistant. The board plans to work with consultants, park staff and members of the public, establish steering committees, and conduct public surveys. The goal is to have it completed by January and approved by the state by April 2020.
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