Fixin? up the park

Centennial Park got a spring face-lift Monday from members of the Oxford Garden Club, Oxford Beautification Commission and village DPW.
Garden Club and Beautifcation Commission members spent the morning trimming, pruning, clearing and cleaning the park’s flower gardens.
‘We consider ourselves civic-minded,? said Garden Club member John Hitch, who was joined in the dirt by his wife of 45 years and fellow club member, JoAnn, who’s also sits on the Beautification Commission.
‘We’re the only husband-and-wife team in the Garden Club,? JoAnn said. ‘He’s the only man now.?
Three of the park’s flower gardens are the Beautification Commission’s responsibility while the fourth is maintained by the Garden Club. The commission’s gardens to left and right of the gazebo are already filled with blooming yellow daffodils.
While the green thumbs gardened, DPW workers installed four new black metal park benches.
One of the benches was purchased by the Bossardet family in memory of former village Councilman and longtime funeral director Ed Bossardet, who passed away last year.
The other three benches were purchased using part of a $6,000 donation from Oxford residents Tab and Lisa Brinker, who’s generous gift was meant to memoralize Lisa’s parents, the late Herman and Jean Laich. The rest of the Brinkers? donation was used to purchase decorative rocks, which now line and define the borders of all four flower gardens, and for enhancements to the two gardens near the gazebo.