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Quanah Friends of the Park is excited to announce some big changes taking place! If you have not been by the Historic Quanah City Park this week, you may not have noticed, but there are a couple things that may look a little different now. One of those changes is on the concrete surface of the old koi pond beneath the new blue canopy. Thanks to a generous grant awarded this year from the Gene Conley Foundation providing the funding along with additional support from the community and the E. Eugene Johnson Memorial Foundation, Friends of the Park has added six beautiful new picnic tables!
Since the tables arrived in Quanah unassembled, Friends of the Park needed the support of the community to get everything together. The Quanah High School Agriculture Department stepped up in a big way to help. Thanks to several ag students, the tables were assembled by their classes and delivered to their new home in the park. Friends of the Park would like to give a special thanks to the ag teachers and the following students who helped assemble and deliver the tables: Ranson McSpadden, Triston George, Ethan Cato, Cooper Talley, Chance Brandon, and Clancey Bagby, Koda Wood, and Troi Barrera. For Quanah Friends of the Park, it has been enjoyable to see this go from an idea to a reality, and we encourage everyone to get out an enjoy these new amenities at your Historic Quanah City Park. Year two of the Treemendous Quanah Initiative is in the books!
With our wonderful volunteers from Quanah Friends of the Park, we were able to replace trees lost from the weather this past year along with a few additional new trees. In total, we planted 11 1-2 year growth trees and 4 seedlings at Historic Quanah City Park, 6 trees at Hardeman County Historical Museums, 2 at the Quanah Community Center, and 2 at the Goodlett Cemetery. We were also able to provide 6 trees to individuals from the community for planting in their own yards! Thank you to all who volunteered for this event, and we would like to especially thank the West Kessler Native Arbor Initiative and the Lewisville Aquatic Ecosystem Research Facility for donating the trees. Thank you to everyone who made it out to Concert at the Park 2021 with Vegas Stars! It was a great evening with burgers from Quanah Volunteer Fire Department, frozen goodies from Dreamsicle Ice Cream Truck, and barrel train rides for the kids from the Quanah Masonic Lodge.
This morning we were so excited to have a group come together from the West Kessler Native Arbor Initiative of the West Kessler Neighborhood Association, the Treemendous Quanah Initiative of the E. Eugene Johnson Memorial Foundation, and with members of the East Dallas 4-H Club to collect tree seeds to be provided to the Lewisville Aquatic Ecosystem Research Facility (LAERF). We were happy to have a researcher from LAERF join with our group today in the seed collection effort as well. Thank you to everyone who helped out this morning, and we hope to be able to collect even more seeds to provide to LAERF in the next few weeks.
 The E. Eugene Johnson Memorial Foundation is excited to announce that it is working with the Goodlett Cemetery Association on a project to enhance the existing entryway to the Goodlett Cemetery. The Foundation established a committee in August 2020 for purposes of identifying specific needs or project ideas at the Goodlett Cemetery. This committee and the Foundation’s board have developed design ideas to supplement the existing arched entryway by adding a new stone wall along with other design elements.
The committee met with the board of the Goodlett Cemetery Association on August 16, 2021 and presented its ideas for the entryway enhancement. It was agreed that the project would move forward, and the Foundation is now working towards the final designs with a goal of construction beginning in the spring of 2022. The image provided is the current design for how we envision the entryway enhancement to look once completed. Although the design is not final and subject to change, this rendering does provide a general idea of the concept and should likely be close to how the final design will come together. Although the Foundation has already made progress towards the financial needs for this project through donations it has received, we still need the help and support from the community. As such, we are currently seeking additional donations to help fund our Goodlett Cemetery initiatives to make this project a reality. If you would like to contribute, please visit our website at www.eejfoundation.org/goodlettcemetery. You may also donate by check payable to E. Eugene Johnson Memorial Foundation with Goodlett Cemetery on the memo line. You may deposit checks in person at Security Bank in Quanah or mail them to the Foundation at 726 North Hampton Road, Dallas, Texas 75208. For those not familiar with it, the Goodlett Cemetery is located in western Hardeman County, approximately ten miles west of Quanah. The cemetery was established in the early 1900s and is officially recognized by the Texas Historical Commission as a Historic Texas Cemetery. The Goodlett Cemetery Association, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, was established in 1947. More information about the Goodlett Cemetery may be found at www.goodlettcemetery.org. As Quanah Friends of the Park announced in March, we have been working on replacing the basketball goals at Historic Quanah City Park. As part of that project, we announced a contest for students to give us their best artistic designs for the backboards for the new goals as we begin working towards installation of public art in the park. We were overwhelmed by the response and received a total of 23 entries from elementary and middle school students. The top two designs, as voted on by the members of the Quanah Friends of the Park Volunteer Corps and Friends of the Park Committee of the E. Eugene Johnson Memorial Foundation, have been selected. Although, for a very good reason (more details soon), we have been delayed in the installation of the new goals, we wanted to go ahead and announce the winners and show off their designs. Here are the winners and other entries including the titles of their designs and their grades (2020-21 school year):
Other Students Who Submitted Entries:
William Waldo, Weston Wilson, Grayson Alcantar, Weston McAllister, Gavin Longoria, Meredithe Meeks, Carlos Nutter, Carter Christianelli, Kenny Cole, Maggie Horton, and Travis Middle School Life Skills Class. We would like to thank each and every student who submitted a design, and give a special thank you also to Torey Sparkman for her help with us to coordinate the designs and entries. Although we had originally planned to have the students with the winning designs help in painting the designs on the backboards, we changed those plans and ended up having the two students re-draw their designs on a larger format, which were then placed on the backboards by Empire Wraps in Wichita Falls. We have included photos here of the two artists with their winning designs and some of the behind-the-scenes work of the wraps being installed. Thank you again to everyone involved with this project, and we can’t wait to see these new goals up and being used soon at the Historic Quanah City Park!   Quanah Historical Preservation together with Quanah Friends of the Park presents Concert at the Park with a live performance from Vegas Stars beginning at 8:00 PM. Everyone is welcome at this FREE EVENT at the beautiful Historic Quanah City Park.
 Thank you to everyone from Quanah and beyond who volunteered with us to help make the Quanah Parker Medicine Mounds Gathering a success!
The overwhelming support from those who gave their time and effort to help facilitate the many events is truly appreciated. |
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SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTERThe E. Eugene Johnson Memorial Foundation is a Texas non-profit corporation and 501(c)(3) tax exempt public charity (EIN 85-1255191).
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