\ufeffBy Carol McIntire<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The park on the hill or \u201cHill Park\u201d in Amsterdam received an official name during a June 1 ceremony. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The park was named Pepperling Park in honor of former Amsterdam Mayor Gary Pepperling, who was instrumental in the development of the park, located on the \u201chill\u201d near the intersection of Liberty and Oler streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m really humbled by this,\u201d Pepperling said after current Mayor Jim Phillips shared the story of the park. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGary\u2019s persistence is the reason I joined village council and the reason I am involved in politics now,\u201d Phillips said, \u201cOne day I was mowing my grass and this guy who was walking his dog showed up. At that point I didn\u2019t know who he was, but learned it was Mayor Pepperling. He asked me if I was interested in serving on council. I told him I wasn\u2019t interested. He said to think about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe came back a second time and asked me. I said I wasn\u2019t interested, again. He came back a third time and I told him the only way I would do it was if he taught me his job. He did and here I am.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pepperling, who served as a village councilman for three years and mayor for 16 before retiring from the position a few years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a better place to grow up than Amsterdam,\u201d Pepperling said, standing beside the new \u201cPepperling Park\u201d sign at the park entrance. \u201cI lived in that house right over there and wouldn\u2019t wait to get out of here. After graduation I went to Vietnam, and I couldn\u2019t wait to get back home. Spread the word: Amsterdam is a great place to live.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The former mayor explained how the park came to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was an old four-room schoolhouse on this lot,\u201d Pepperling said, turning his head toward the hill where play equipment now sits. \u201cIt was torn down in, maybe 1966, and became just a vacant lot. We put a couple swing sets up and kids started coming here. Council then started putting in play equipment, rides and swings and then we put a pavilion. It gets a lot of use today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Village council passed an ordinance to name the park in honor of Pepperling and Fiscal Officer Jamie Phillips designed the sign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\ufeffBy Carol McIntire Editor The park on the hill or \u201cHill Park\u201d in Amsterdam received an official name during a June 1 ceremony. The park was named Pepperling Park in honor of former Amsterdam Mayor Gary Pepperling, who was instrumental in the development of the park, located on the \u201chill\u201d near the intersection of Liberty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":41846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theccmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Pepperling-Park-dedication-WEB-RBG.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theccmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41844"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theccmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theccmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theccmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theccmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theccmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41847,"href":"https:\/\/theccmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41844\/revisions\/41847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theccmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theccmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theccmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theccmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}