Their eyes lit up at the thought of the long ago days of play at Burris Park. Smiles widened across their faces as they relived the memories of their childhoods.

Steve Bogan, superintendent of Armona Union Elementary School District, and Joe Camara, president of the Burris Park Foundation, met last week to talk about their memories at the place they plan to help develop into a multi-faceted outdoor education facility. Burris Park will become an outdoor classroom where local students will have the opportunity to engage in hands-on learning in an environment rich with history and living science. The park is located on 55 acres at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Clinton in the northeast corner of Kings County, approximately 11 miles from downtown Hanford. In the park are hiking trails and a museum of natural history.

But it used to be a different kind of place -- a magnet for youth of Kings County.

Bogan said his earliest memories are of the old road into the park, on Sixth Avenue, about halfway between Denver and Clinton. Bogan recalled the old entrance being bordered by "old rocks," then winding around near a riverbed and split at one point by a giant oak tree.

He would journey to the park for summer picnics, baseball games and ice cream socials, as well as for assignments in his high school photography class.

But the park's biggest draw were its animals.

Camara and Bogan remembered the coyotes, woodpeckers, quail, fish, frogs and doves that used to fill the area. Camara recalled climbing in the river to catch fish and frogs, and hunting all around the park area from as young as 12 years old.

Camara recalled elementary school, when they would spend a "play day" near the end of every school year at Burris Park. The school's older boys would go beforehand and fill a long jump pit and chalk a track. Then, the whole school would spend the day racing and competing in track events.

Camara said some of the moms would make lunch for all the children and they would finish out the "play days" with father-son baseball and mother-daughter softball games.

When not in school, Camara said he and friends would often walk or bike -- several miles -- to Burris Park and wait until the last possible momemt before commencing their return home. But, since everyone knew everyone, Camara and friends were often scooped up by a neighbor heading down the road -- hitching the ride in the back of a truck.

"It's amazing how things have changed," Camara said. "But those kind of days for kids are gone. But I don't know any kid who would not have a good time out there, and I think it would really help in the classroom."

The Burris Park Foundation and others aiding in the development of the outdoor educational center -- which has already hosted several curriculum based field trips -- plan to soon build a multi purpose room and covered walkway at the park. They hope to have at least one teacher on site to introduce children to nature, animal life, geology and Native American and pioneer history.

Nature is a key component that Camara said children have lost touch with. He said many adults can't tell types of trees apart.

"If parents don't know, then kids don't know unless someone else teaches them," Bogan said.

But Camara knew the trees. He was out at the park year around as he grew up.

Camara recalled with sudden excitement a slide that carried its passengers over an old oak tree, just Southeast of the wagon barn.

"Everytime we went to Burris Park we had to go on the slide for a while," Camara said.

The vivid description brought back the image of the slide to Bogan.

"It seemed like it was 100 feet in the air," Bogan said.

Camara admitted the slide probably was too tall for current playground standards, but they had never had any accidents out there, or in their journeys to and fro.

"It was safe then," Camara said of the park and society decades ago. "That's the way it was. It was a fun time. Kind of like Huckleberry Finn."

But Bogan realized when he heard of the park's potential closing that it could no longer be just a childhood memory.

"As an educator, you kind of start thinking about the 'what if's' and what if we could get that for our kids," Bogan said.

Camara added that he wished there had been an outdoor school at Burris Park when he was a child.

"I'd have been out there every day if they would have let me," Camara said.

Eventually, the plan is to have classrooms out there everyday of the week and still have it open to the public on weekends. Bogan said a big piece of what the foundation is hoping to do by fall is create curriculum so that any local teacher could take their students out there and have a relevant hands-on activity and created lesson already set up and in place to use, for every potential unit of study. But it is going to require constant securing of funds.

The foundation and the county split half and half the annual cost to keep the park open. That's why the foundation partnered with Hanford Elementary School District's Educational Foundation to host and split proceeds of an upcoming fundraiser.

"Taste of the Valley" Main Event Celebration Gala will be held on Saturday, May 3, and will help raise money to keep Burris Park open. The event will be held at the Hanford Courthouse Square Stage at 4:30 p.m., and will include wine tasting, appetizers, desserts and live music. About 11 wineries and 10 eateries are expected at the event.

Tickets will be $50 per person and are available by contacting 585-3679 or 381-5075, as well as at The Wine Sellers at 107 W. 7th St.

Fundraiser organizers are still looking for sponsors to contribute to and volunteers to serve at the event. To contribute, contact Mike Mendoza at 585-3679, Steve Bogan at 583-5000 or Joe Camara at 707-2636.

Bogan and Camara also urged local residents who would like to speed up development of Burris Park to contact them.

If you go

“Taste of the Valley” Main Event Celebration Gala, fundraiser to help keep Burris Park open

Saturday, May 3, 4:30 p.m., Hanford Courthouse Square Stage

Information: 585-3679 or 381-5075.

The reporter can be reached at 583-2424.

(April 22, 2008)