Despite graduating from the program in August, the 2017 class of Leadership Vicksburg refused to give up on making their class project a reality.

Their hard work will come to realization Friday when the new dog park at the Vicksburg Municipal Airport officially opens to the public.

“We wanted to do something that would last more than just a one-time deal,” class member Josh Dixon said. “When you look at places that are attracting young couples and bringing people in, a lot of these places are starting to build dog parks. A lot of young people are starting to treat dogs like their children and having a place outdoors for them to exercise or gather or meet other dog owners seems to be a big draw for people.”

The dog park will feature separate enclosures for big and small dogs and will combine with the community garden and walking trails to create an outdoor destination for residents and visitors to Warren County.

“We talked with Linda Fondren, the community garden is her deal, and she had all that land in front of the airport,” Dixon said. “We got in touch with her and she said she thought that’d be a great use for it. We can incorporate the community garden and the playground and have an outdoor area for people to go to.”

The group was met with multiple roadblocks along their way to building the park as they weren’t selected for the two grants they applied for, but help and funding from the city of Vicksburg enabled the project to go from an idea to a reality.

“It was this dream that we didn’t know if we would be able to accomplish, but that it would be a huge asset to Vicksburg and Warren County,” class member Lurline Simmons said. “For actually the fence to be up, the signs to be posted and for it to be open to the public is a great sense of accomplishment.”

The park will open Friday with a ribbon cutting, but the Leadership Vicksburg class is still working on the final touches such as having water run out to the park by the city to enable dog owners to fill bowls for their pets. City maintenance workers will handle the upkeep of the park going forward.

“There have been some questions from the public on will we be collecting shot records. The answer to that is no, it is not a membership park,” Simmons said. “This is open to the public so we ask everyone to use it at their own discretion. Please follow the signs that are posted.”