June 4, 2015 - The City of Timpson and Timpson Area Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon cutting on Monday, July 1, 2015 for the newly installed lights of the city's MLK Park.
Paul Smith, Timpson Area Chamber of Commerce President, was the first to share his feelings about the newly installed lighting, "I'm really proud of the city putting an extra effort out to make sure we get lights in the park up here. It is a park that needs to be used by everybody and I think we've got a good group of youth that's going to make good use of it, so I'm excited. I'm excited about being able to come up here and watch them play ball and all," said Smith. "The Timpson [Area] Chamber of Commerce is really excited about the lights on the park and thanks the city for making sure that happened."
Mayor Debra Pate Smith said the project was a long time coming and enlightened everyone as to how the city acquired the lights for the park, "The lights actually were a reusable product, they were lights I think Mr. [Tommy] Sparks originally put up at the school years ago. When they put their new ones in Mr. [Mid] Johnson and I kind of had an agreement, they used Tommy to put some lights where they wanted that they took down and in turn we got lights for the park here."
According to Mayor Smith their are many nighttime uses already scheduled for the park including kickball team games, softball teams and Center baseball team practices. She also elaborated about future plans at the park.
"We'd like to get the backstop at the back border fixed so that two teams can practice at a time and possibly look at some fencing and things so they'll know when they hit it out of the park so to speak," said Smith.
The Smiths provided a personal pitching machine for youth at the event to practice with inaugurating the newly installed lights. Paul Smith thanked the Ministerial Alliance for providing food and refreshments for those present. Pastor Marvin Jackson with Clayton Temple blessed the food. Following refreshments a ribbon cutting was held and Mayor Smith switched the lights on for the park.
