New dog park honoring veterans opens in Minooka

When Larry Simotes scheduled the opening of the Veterans Dog Park at the corner of Waubena and Wapella in Minooka for Saturday, he assumed it’d get rained out.

That’s what the weather forecast was telling him, at least. So he prayed, and he got exactly what he wanted: The rainy weather came a day early, and he and all the veterans and dogs in attendance got a perfect day to celebrate. He joked he’ll have to go to church more often.

Simotes, who Minooka Mayor Ric Offerman said was the mastermind behind building a park in this lot that had been vacant for the village’s entire existence, said he was feeling a bit of pressure introducing the park to the public: There were a lot of people he needed to remember to thank.

First, though, he introduced Duane Stevenson, a World War II veteran who served as a combat engineer in the Pacific from 1943 to 1946.

“I’m a survivor of three invasions on islands in the Pacific,” Stevenson. “I wouldn’t be here in the day if I went on the fourth, because the fourth invasion was a raid of Japan. We were pretty certain we wouldn’t survive a fourth invasion. Now here I am, because the war ended when we were loading up the ships to go there. I’m a lucky man, and I’m lucky to be here.”

Simotes started the project to build the dog park thinking he’d be doing it alone, but he had people every step of the way look at him and say “I’ve got it.” Simotes designed the park himself, but he had a lot of help in making it a reality.

It started with Simotes talking to Pete Fleming and Brandon Tonarelli to buy the land, and Fleming didn’t take any commission on the purchase. It kept going: Simotes tried to hire a digger, who said he’d handle it. He talked to Narvick Bros. about getting the concrete for the sidewalks, and they told him they’ve got it. Vogt Masonry built the brick columns of the entranceway, and Simotes went on the list of the many, many people who made the project possible.

“Everything here was pieced together, from the landscape to the fencing, to the sidewalks and I could probably go on forever with names,” Simotes said. “What you can do is look at that board to the west.”

He pointed toward the entrance, where there’s a plaque that commemorates everyone who came together to make the park possible

“After the today, the park won’t be mine,” Simotes said. “It’ll be the village’s, and I’m proud to say it’s in good hands.”

Offerman said it took a lot of work by volunteers to build this park to honor the veterans.

“This park did not fall out of the sky,” Offerman said. “We’re looking at about two years from the time they started this project to us standing here in the sunshine today.”