Editor’s note: It was a pleasure to receive Dave Mello’s news about how the Batavia Lions Club worked hard to build a memorial to one of its former citizens. It was a pleasure for me to work with Bill Kitchen when he was a sports writer and editor at The Ottumwa Courier. It was a job he thoroughly enjoyed and was good at. He left us in the late 1970s to work in the Kansas City area. And, at age 51, he left us forever when he died in 2000. We commend the efforts of the Batavia area citizens who remembered one of their own. — Judy Krieger

How do you turn a huge bundle of governmental red tape into a community park and a little red barn? You might ask any member of the Batavia Lions Club.

Many of the members of the Batavia Lions Club are local farmers, accustomed to putting up sheds and barns, so building their most recent community service project wasn’t all that difficult. Finding their way through the twisted paths of state and local government in order to have a place on which to build a park and a shelter shaped like a little red barn was quite another story; a story of patience and perseverance and persuasion.

In 2003, Batavia Lions received a generous memorial gift from the Kitchen family in memory of Bill Kitchen. Bill was well known for his community activism and as a journalist, having written for several newspapers including the Eldon Forum and the Batavia Beacon. The idea of using the memorial funds to help build a community park and shelter in memory of Bill Kitchen was proposed, and a search began for a suitable site. In the fall of 2003, earthwork was just beginning on the Highway 34 bypass, and it soon became apparent that when the new overpass (exit 203) and its access routes were finally completed, there would be a pie-shaped piece of property left over, a perfect spot for a park and a shelter; perfect, that is, if you can find a way to get it.

For the next three years, Batavia Lions Club waited patiently for the ponderous machinery of state and local government to move just enough to free up the little pie-shaped piece of land next to the exit 203 overpass. For the busy people at the Department of Transportation, however, there were houses to move, creeks to cross and a highway to build. There was little time for dealing with pie-shaped lots. Ten months went by; the tangle of governmental red tape seemed as formidable as the famous Gordian knot. Nothing was moving. As earthwork on exit 203 progressed, however, it became clear that a culvert pipe would need to be installed deep under the fill dirt that formed the access road if the pie-shaped lot were to ever be used. It was one of those now or never situations. With no guarantee of ever getting the lot for the Lions Club project, Lion Nick Adam bought a culvert pipe, dropped it in the open trench and gambled that the vision of a park on the pie-shaped lot would eventually be a reality; that the pipe that he paid for would not be just a high-priced rabbit hole.

Patience is a virtue, perseverance is a way to get things done, persuasion is almost an art form. Gentle persuasion, artfully done, gradually transfers your vision to others, convincing them that they should somehow act on your behalf even when they don’t seem to have the time. Over a period of almost three years, it was Lion Nick Adam who persisted in the quest to somehow free the little pie-shaped property from the entanglements of the overlapping bureaucracies; building relationships with the representatives of the state and local agencies, sharing the vision of a community park on the pie-shaped lot and employing gentle persuasion to overcome the resistance that was due to endless, layers of red tape. It was all about gentle persuasion, finding ways to make the difficult at least seem easy because without persistence and persuasion, there would be no park on the pie-shaped lot.

In March of 2007, word finally came from the representatives of the Department of Transportation: Ownership of the pie-shaped lot at Exit 203 had been transferred to the city of Batavia! After almost four years, Batavia Lions Club could now make a formal proposal to the Batavia City Council for a memorial to Bill Kitchen in the form of a community park and shelter. After almost four years, the project was going to be a reality!

Local businesses and individuals in the Batavia-Fairfield area contributed generously to help offset some of the construction costs of the new park by furnishing materials at reduced prices. Ideal Ready-Mix from Fairfield sent concrete. Hawkeye Lumber in Batavia furnished lumber and siding. Britt Builders from Batavia helped erect the framing and installed part of the roof, while Brewington & Sons Concrete from Batavia helped Lions Club members with concrete cutting. Batavia residents Greg and David Adam furnished trees for landscaping as did Oakwood Nursery in Fairfield. Hawkeye Lumber built the new picnic table, and the city of Batavia sent some surplus playground equipment. Finally, Lion Steve Dallner selected a perfectly shaped boulder from a local creek, rescued the boulder without scratching it and had the boulder inscribed with Bill Kitchen’s name. As a testament to the validity of the phrase, “If you build it, they will come,” the park was completed just after 2 p.m. on a Wednesday. By 3:30 p.m. that same afternoon there were children playing on the equipment.

As you zoom by Exit 203 on new, Highway 34, and you see the red barn with the script painted on the roof proclaiming “Welcome to Batavia!” remember Bill Kitchen: newspaperman, sports writer, community servant and activist. Someone who definitely made a difference.