Dugas Park Welcomes New Director

By Damon Stone,
Staff Writer

Dugas Community Park recently shared that they have found a new executive director, who will begin in January.

“Dugas Community Park has been in the process of looking for a new executive director since mid-January, and we are happy to announce that Shannon Weaver will be assuming that leadership role beginning January 1,” said Janet Johnson, the president of the Friends of Dugas Community Park board of directors.

Johnson shared that, before the formal announcement, that Weaver has been working to know the community, and learning about the park’s processes with ongoing projects, such as the dog park, or dog field.

Shannon Weaver, the son of Norman Weaver, will be the second person to have the title of executive director at the park, and brings a broad degree of financial planning experience and strategic planning experience, Johnson said.

“I was born here, my family is from here, my dad was a high school basketball coach, so we moved around a lot, but I’ve been a part of Allen County my entire life,” Weaver said. “My career has been away from here, but it’s been very exciting to get to come back at this point and try to do something that I believe is extremely important, and can do so much good for the people of not only Allen County, but the whole southern Kentucky, northern Tennessee region.”

Weaver shared that he has had two career paths prior to him being brought on as executive director, having been a college basketball coach, acting as assistant coach at Middle Tennessee State University for 14 years, and then a Division 2 school in Georgia, and then seven years at Auburn University as associate head coach, up until the early 2000s.

“From there, I moved to Louisville, got out of coaching, and I’ve been in financial services ever since,” Weaver said. “The direct experiences (are) the organization, the leadership, and then the financial knowledge that goes with that. Both of those have a considerable amount of fundraising.”

Weaver shared that during his time at the University of West Georgia, along with being the assistant athletic director, he was in charge of fundraising.

“From my projects in Louisville, I’ve served on several boards, including the Kosair (Children’s) Hospital junior board, and several other fundraising outside my work, but in my work, we did capital raises for investments,” Weaver explained. “I think it’s a unique set of experiences, but I really believe that it sets me up for what this park needs.”

With the park coming up on its 25th year open since its establishment by the Dugas family, Weaver expressed interest in looking at the master plan for the park, with that document still being relevant, and aspects from the plan that Weaver and Johnson are looking towards.

“The original plan, the basic mission, is to bring education and recreation to the people of Allen County and visitors,” Weaver explained. “I think that, after talking with the board, I saw an opportunity to not only do something that was challenging and fit my skill set, but an opportunity to do something for a place that I love and a lot of people that I love.”

Weaver expressed his belief that a partnership exists between the community and the park, with the park having an “unbelievable gift” to share with the people.

“And as we all expect over the next decades, it’s going to be even more valuable as growth and population starts to take up more and more space; that’s just inevitable,” Weaver added. “I think this county has two incredible gifts to bring to that whole process, which is the lake and this park, and when you look at Bowling Green, talking about going to 2-300,000 people and Allen County to 50,000 over the next 25 years, that type of set aside space really represents what this place has always been, and it’s a great representation of the people.”

Along with the dog field, which is set to be recreational and educational, Weaver hopes to build off of the park’s relationship with the school, and to reevaluate the master plan and making sure that they have a path, and prioritize what’s there.

“In our mind, I think three months from now, we’ll know more about this, this, this and this, but things that are on there, like a welcome center, a nature center, those are imminent, that’s going to happen,” Weaver explained. “We have some campground sites that we’ll look to grow. Beyond the nature center and the welcome center, there’s a possibility of more event space to offer up. I think a welcome center and nature center, I think that’s imminent, it’s just a matter of getting us into planning.”

Weaver added that other things on the master plan, such as a pavilion for physical therapy, are being looked at as well, along with continuing to the trails.

“That will be crossing Bay’s Fork Creek into, and connecting, the farm with additional trails to include not only hiking, but also equestrian trails for course events,” Johnson added. “That’s a primary feature of that particular area. We also will soon be unveiling a new mountain bike trail.”

The trail has been cut to be about 1.7 miles, with the park currently being in the process of manicuring the trail, and getting ready to announce partnerships.

Along with new changes, Weaver explained that he wants to continue events at the park that have worked in the past, such as Norrofest.

“We want all of our facilities used,” Weaver said. “Our goal is that, if you ask a citizen of this county, in the next one, two, five years, what Dugas Park means to you, everyone has an answer. If you’re a dog lover, you got it, if you’re a music lover, you’ve got Norrofest, if you’re a scavenger hunt fan, you’ve got it.”

Weaver added that the park will continue developing the trail system as an ongoing project, with plans to continually develop them indefinitely, either as dog trails, bike trails, educational trails, more walking trails, or something that combines all types of trails.

“We live in a time where it’s harder and harder to have that outdoor time, that recreation time, and there’s never been a more important moment in time in the history of this county than this park is to these people right now,” Weaver expressed.

Johnson recalled that, before the park was established, there was nowhere in the community where someone could safely have outdoor physical activity, with the primary premise of the park being to fill that gap, being out in nature and not on the side of a road.

“That’s the core principle of where this park started, is that we will continue to provide those safe, accessible green spaces that will encourage physical activity, because that is a health issue that we continue to see,” Johnson said. “To grow, and grow, and grow with people, that it’s the encouragement of physical activity, to lead to health, to prevent long term, what Kentucky calls its three uglies.”

Johnson added those three uglies include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer, with being active serving as a major player to combat and prevent those.

“I’m here to take this incredible piece of the community, and I want to listen to what our citizens say about it, we want to do what helps them,” Weaver expressed. “We’re not here to say, ‘this is what you should do,’ we’re here to say, ‘what can we do for you?’ One of the first things I’m going to be doing is going out, talking to as many people as I can, finding out what we can do, what’s working, what we maybe can do a little better, or maybe what we can do that we’ve never thought of; (…) if it works, and helps the people here, we’ll do it.”