Nature Center marks 10 years

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

The Craw­ford Park Dis­trict, along with com­mu­nity mem­bers, will cel­e­brate the 10-year anniver­sary of the Lowe-Volk Nature Cen­ter on Dec. 16. In prepa­ra­tion for the event, CPD Direc­tor Bill Fisher invited some of the early sup­port­ers who got the Dis­trict off the ground to come in for an infor­mal dis­cus­sion on the organization’s early his­tory and the impor­tance of the Nature Center.

Those who attended were Mike Blais­ing, Richard Car­pen­ter, Emer­son Eck­stein and Mike Mor­ton. The four of them brought in oodles of pic­tures and news clip­pings from years past. They looked through the mem­o­ries and rem­i­nisced about the chal­lenges and suc­cesses of their efforts.

The group agreed that the CPD was based on coop­er­a­tion from the very begin­ning. Mor­ton empha­sized that it was a county-wide endeavor with a vision of “con­ser­va­tion, edu­ca­tion and preser­va­tion.” This vision is evi­dent, even almost two decades later.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Richard Car­pen­ter is hailed as the indi­vid­ual most directly respon­si­ble for the cre­ation of the CPD. A retiree of the cur­rent Pitts­burgh Glass Works in Crest­line, Car­pen­ter said he started think­ing about preser­va­tion when his neighbor’s daugh­ters were col­lect­ing leaves in the woods on his property.

“They were just so excited about being in a woods and some­thing hit me: There’s a lot of kids around like that who do not get to expe­ri­ence nature,” he commented.

Car­pen­ter explained that he vis­ited sev­eral parks through­out Ohio for inspi­ra­tion, and even offered some of his own land to get preser­va­tion started in Craw­ford County. He cred­ited Steve Pro­chaska for encour­ag­ing him and help­ing to set up some of the ini­tial meet­ings to get oth­ers involved with the idea, which is how he got the other three men on board.

The four of them, in addi­tion to sev­eral other indi­vid­u­als, ini­ti­ated the polit­i­cal work to build sup­port from local offi­cials, as well as word of mouth to get the com­mu­nity interested.

Fisher said of Car­pen­ter: “He was so pos­i­tive when he started net­work­ing with cowork­ers, and lead­ers from the cities and the county. This was his vision from the begin­ning and he’s the one who con­vinced peo­ple to get involved.”

Car­pen­ter and Eck­stein recalled when the group went to Find­lay in 1993 to look at Han­cock County’s park sys­tem. A steer­ing com­mit­tee was then cre­ated. In addi­tion to Car­pen­ter, Blais­ing, Eck­stein and Mor­ton, the other com­mit­tee mem­bers were: Dawn Hedges, Men­tor Larsen, John Miz­ick, Gary Ogle, Steve Pro­chaska, Jack Shuck and Sonny Wechter.

Fol­low­ing a pub­lic hear­ing, CPD was offi­cially founded on Nov. 16, 1994 by Pro­bate Judge Steven Eck­stein. The steer­ing com­mit­tee mod­eled CPD’s admin­is­tra­tive and orga­ni­za­tional struc­ture after Han­cock County’s park district.

At that time, CPD was funded solely through pri­vate dona­tions. Con­cep­tu­ally, it is a state orga­ni­za­tion, but it is run by a three-member board of com­mis­sion­ers appointed by the Craw­ford County Pro­bate Court. The first board con­sisted of Car­pen­ter, Mor­ton and Eck­stein. (Car­pen­ter still serves as a commissioner.)

An 18-member advi­sory board assists the com­mis­sion­ers with deci­sion mak­ing and a direc­tor over­sees the day-to-day oper­a­tions. The first CPD direc­tor was James Lit­tle. Two oth­ers fol­lowed him, and then Fisher took the posi­tion six years ago. How­ever, Fisher noted that no one “owns” the CPD.

Mike Blais­ing, a mem­ber of Crest­line City Coun­cil, noted that in the begin­ning, some were skep­ti­cal of the idea of a park dis­trict. Many thought col­lab­o­ra­tion between dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties in the county would be impos­si­ble. In addi­tion, Blais­ing said farm­ers thought CPD would take their land and hunters thought it was anti-hunting. Chang­ing that per­cep­tion was one of many chal­lenges they faced.

Mor­ton added that most peo­ple were not inter­ested in preser­va­tion, so they had to do “some­thing com­pelling” to stim­u­late inter­est. The first three projects CPD com­pleted were: A walk­ing trail at Out­h­waite Reser­voir in Bucyrus, bike trails with routes span­ning the major­ity of the county and the Pic­nic Park at the County Fair­grounds. These projects were cho­sen because they were low cost, yet vis­i­ble to the public.

The 63-acre Unger Park of Bucyrus was even­tu­ally acquired, the first of many land acqui­si­tions for CPD.

Lowe-Volk Park came next in 1998, when Lloyd Volk donated 38 acres of his land on the out­skirts of Leesville. In 1999, the park received the Out­stand­ing Park Area Devel­op­ment Awarded from the Ohio Parks and Recre­ation Association.

A “HOME FOR THE PARKS”

When talk began of cre­at­ing a head­quar­ters for park oper­a­tions, CPD looked at sev­eral loca­tions. Unger Park and a site on Lower Leesville Road and were both con­sid­ered, but Lowe-Volk Park was even­tu­ally agreed upon for the loca­tion of the Nature Cen­ter for numer­ous rea­sons. For starters, it is located between Bucyrus, Crest­line, Galion and New Wash­ing­ton; it also con­tains scenic views, hik­ing trails and a vari­ety of native plants and wildlife species.

Funds for the soon-to-be Lowe-Volk Nature Cen­ter began col­lec­tion in 2000. $750,000 was needed for project con­struc­tion and the group applauded the Timken Foun­da­tion for its com­mu­nity chal­lenge, in which it would match any money raised by pri­vate dona­tions up to $300,000. Sev­eral large dona­tions were received from com­mu­nity mem­bers, but they called the fundraiser more of a “grass­roots effort” pow­ered by the count­less smaller donations.

The county and city gov­ern­ments also con­tributed sub­stan­tial money. “To this day, I don’t know how we did it,” Eck­stein joked.

Car­pen­ter explained that an invest­ment in the Nature Cen­ter meant an invest­ment in the qual­ity of life in Craw­ford County. The CPD is not only an oppor­tu­nity to edu­cate kids on nature—especially as nat­ural resources disappear—there is also a poten­tial for eco­nomic devel­op­ment in the county.

The Nature Cen­ter opened in Dec. 2002. The build­ing has an eco-friendly design, and con­tains a pas­sive solar heat and light sys­tem, an above ground leech bed and par­al­lam beams. It cur­rently fea­tures 25 exhibits on var­i­ous top­ics, includ­ing live wildlife, and meet­ings and events are held in the com­mu­nity room every month. All of them agreed the site rep­re­sents the edu­ca­tion aspect of CPD’s vision. After vis­it­ing other park dis­tricts, they say it is one of the nicest nature cen­ters they’ve seen.

The con­tin­ued county-wide coop­er­a­tion in financ­ing the CPD makes them feel that the site rep­re­sents a “county com­mu­nity.” Eck­stein said the Nature Cen­ter is what started draw­ing peo­ple in. Now, he calls it “home to the parks.”

Lowe-Volk Park com­pli­ments it because of the vari­ety of habi­tats located there, which are ideal for nature stud­ies: Decid­u­ous for­est, pine for­est, meadow, pond, sedge meadow wet­land, marsh wet­land, water­ways and sand­stone ledges.

The site is geo­graph­i­cally sig­nif­i­cant due to the junc­tion of Allen Run and Para­mour Creek—the start of the San­dusky River. It is also his­tor­i­cally sig­nif­i­cant, as Colonel William Craw­ford was cap­tured in the area by Native Amer­i­cans in 1782.

Another aspect the men noted is that the park is hand­i­cap acces­si­ble. The fish­ing dock on the pond and the recently com­pleted side­walk that leads back to the board­walk can be used by peo­ple in wheel­chairs in order to enjoy nature as well.

The Nature Cen­ter received the Excel­lence in Facil­ity Devel­op­ment Award from the Ohio Parks and Recre­ation Asso­ci­a­tion in 2003.

CONTINUING THE VISION

CPD has not stopped with the Nature Cen­ter. When the Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources acquired Sears Woods, a con­tract was nego­ti­ated that allows the park dis­trict to main­tain the land, which now entails 98 acres of some of the old­est wood­land in the county.

Next, CPD devel­oped a 35-acre hunt­ing ground near Bucyrus called the San­dusky Wildlife Area. Heck­ert Nature Pre­serve, 43 acres of land located between Galion and Bucyrus, was acquired next, for which CPD has a part­ner­ship with the Ohio State University.

Ear­lier this year, ODNR acquired the Daugh­mer Prairie Savan­nah in the south­ern part of the county. As with Sears Woods, CPD has agreed to main­tain that land as well.

Con­tin­ued sup­port from com­mu­nity members—and con­tin­ued coop­er­a­tion amongst communities—has been the most impor­tant fac­tor in keep­ing CPD mov­ing for­ward. Fisher finds that sup­port “unbe­liev­able,” adding that pass­ing the levy last March will promise finan­cial sup­port for the next 10 years.

Sum­mer day camps, which CPD has been orga­niz­ing for nine years, have also been very suc­cess­ful. Also, schools take field trips to the var­i­ous parks, and some­times nat­u­ral­ists go to the schools to deliver nature-themed pro­grams. A vari­ety of pro­grams are held at the Nature Cen­ter year round per­tain­ing to nature or his­tory. Other annual events the CPD spon­sors include: Arrow­head Day, River­fest, Liv­ing His­tory Day and Unger Farm Her­itage Day.

The open house for the 10-year anniver­sary will be held at Lowe-Volk Nature Cen­ter on Sun­day, Dec. 16, from 2–5 p.m. It is located at 2401 State Route 598, Crest­line. For more infor­ma­tion, call the Nature Cen­ter at 419–683-9000 or visit the CPD web­site at www.crawfordparkdistrict.org.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Dec 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.