Naming rights were the talk of the most recent Naperville Park District Board meeting.
Memorial Field
Naperville resident Ray Kinney approached the board asking for Knoch Park Field 5 to be renamed to Memorial Field, in honor of Justin Wegner, Connor Hunt and other young athletes who died too early. They would also install plaques in the outfield to honor them.
“I think we’ve come to a great compromise by saying lets call the field the Memorial Field and give other people the opportunity to memorialize members of their family or loved ones or people in the community that they felt did something and have them ‘Angels in the Outfield’ along the outfield fence,” said Kinney.
The “Angels in the Outfield” plaques would be worked in to the park district’s Remembrance Program.
New Scoreboard at Knoch Field
Kinney said he also plans to privately fundraise for a new scoreboard for the field, which will be named the Justin Wegner Memorial Scoreboard. He hopes they can finish that before opening day in April.
“Eventually I’d love to see us do one day of a memorial baseball game every year and have the families that are there and do that and celebrate,” said Kinney. “Maybe it’s not the championship, but maybe it’s opening day or something like that to do some really cool community gathering and it’s what the park district is all about.”
95th Street Community Plaza
The board also plans to finalize the name 95th Street Community Plaza, for the development in south Naperville.
A ribbon-cutting event for the plaza is being planned for some time in May.
All three naming considerations will come back to the board after 60 days for a final vote.
Naperville News 17’s Casey Krajewski reports.
If you have a story idea or news tip you want to share, we want to hear from you!
