There was a Prom to attend this past Friday, June 3.
No problem for a group of Steilacoom High students who had a “park to bark” first before the gala evening event.
About a dozen Steilacoom High School students showed up at Perkins Park after school that afternoon for the 15th annual “Bark the Park.”
“The park looks like a million dollars,” said Roberta Black, advisor for the school’s National Honor Society that does the annual park cleanup. The project began in 2002, two years before Steilacoom’s 150th anniversary. It has been continued every year.
This year’s group of NHS students raked, pulled weeds, cleaned up trash, and spread fresh bark around the park, getting it ready for summer.
The Perkins Park project is just one of many that the National Honor Society students complete during the school year.
Thus far, Mrs. Black estimates that they’ve spread about 150 yards of fresh bark since that first year.
Afterward, the students went home, showered, dressed, and headed for the prom…where “a good time was had by all.”
Note: Perkins Park was named in honor of Dr. Mary Perkins, Steilacoom’s first woman physician. A large stone marker, with a photo of Dr. Perkins, was placed in 1972 on property donated by Perkins’ son, Melville. The park is located at the corner of Union and Martin Street.