A process to honor Oktibbeha County residents who positively impacted their community at Unity Park is expected to begin this fall.
The Unity Park Committee, a group of residents charged to oversee and promote the public greenspace next to Mugshots restaurant, asked supervisors to provide funding for beautification projects and for a website that will serve as an educational resource on the location.
Once established, the website will also allow the public to submit names of former residents who could be honored each year at the park’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.
The inaugural nomination period is expected to run from mid-August to mid-October this year, and the committee will decide how to move forward with honoring nominees in the winter.
Unity Park Committee member and president for the Oktibbeha County chapter of th National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Chris Taylor said those honorees, which will ultimately be approved by supervisors, will likely have their names etched into a plaque or stone monument at the park.
The committee will vet nominees by using a four-point criteria: They must have lived in Oktibbeha County, have been deceased at least five years, have contributed to the community and must have worked to advance community unity.
While Unity Park honors those who made contributions during the civil rights movement and helped improve race relations, Taylor said future inductions will not be limited to one period of local history.
“This is a great way to highlight those who have made a positive impact for Starkville and Oktibbeha County throughout the years,” he said.
In all, Unity Park Committee members asked the county for $1,500 for park maintenance projects; $500 to establish the website and $200 annually for its continued operation; and an initial $2,000 that will be used for an art project at the site.
Supervisors took the group’s budget request under advisement and are expected to broach allocations as the county prepares its Fiscal Year 2017-18 budget.
As for the art project, committee members previously pitched painting a mural on the side of the County Education Building that faces Unity Park.
That idea is still possible, artist Dylan Karges told supervisors last week, but the project could be adjusted to a different type of installation — a monument, for example — depending on the board’s wishes.
The group will work with the local Boys and Girls Club this summer on the arts project, allowing youth to develop ideas and projects while learning about local history and the people who helped shape Oktibbeha County.
“This is a grassroots effort connecting the kids with what makes Unity Park special. It will give them a context of the civil rights movement in general and bring it down to the local level,” Karges told supervisors. “This will allow them to create their own images so they can tell their stories and how to make this community stronger.”
The ideas generated in the project will help shape the Unity Park installation, Karges said, but the overall design’s approval will remain up to the board.
“We appreciate the passion, effort and time (committee members) have spent to make this park a great thing for Oktibbeha County,” said District 3 Supervisor Marvell Howard. “We appointed this committee to get to work, and that’s exactly what you all have done.”
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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