IN MEMORY OF ...: City dedicates new park

By EMMILY N. BRISTOL

VIEW STAFF WRITER

The memory of Silverado High School freshman Stephanie Lynn Craig will live on at one of Henderson's newest parks.

Craig died of a rare form of cancer in December 1998. After her death, many of her fellow students and members of the Henderson Girls Softball Association (HGSA) requested that a park be named in her honor.

That request was fulfilled Dec. 16, when city officials ceremoniously plunged their shovels into the dirt during a groundbreaking for the expansion and renaming of Thurman White Ball Fields, located on the north end of the Thurman White Middle School campus at 1661 Galleria Drive.

Stephanie Craig's father, Russ, said his daughter was well-liked by adults and her peers. She was a cheerleader at Greenspun Middle School and Silverado High School while at the same time playing softball with the HGSA.

After her 15th birthday in September 1998, Stephanie Craig experienced pain in her back that she and her doctors attributed to her athletic activities. When the pain didn't subside, she had a CAT scan which located a tumor in her colon.

By November she was admitted to the hospital and on her younger brother's birthday, Dec. 14, 1998, she died.

Russ Craig said the cancer she contracted was so rare, only five people in the United States are diagnosed with it a year. "No one survives it," he said.

At her funeral, Stephanie's softball coach, Julie Hatch, approached Russ Craig with an idea to get a park or ballfield named after her. Stephanie Craig's teachers at Silverado spearheaded a letter-writing campaign that produced more than 1,000 letters to the parks and recreation department.

Plans were already under way for the second phase expansion of Thurman White Ball Fields when members of HGSA and Silverado teachers approached the city with an idea to rededicate the park to Craig, said parks and recreation representative Cindy Herman.

Herman credits Hatch, Stephanie Craig's first HGSA softball coach, with the idea of rededicating the park.

"It was feasible for parks and recreation to go ahead and rename Thurman White Ball Fields," Herman said.

In 1999, an agreement was made that Thurman White Ball Fields would be rededicated before it went into its second phase of development.

Russ Craig said he is overwhelmed with the amount of support he and his remaining two children have received from Stephanie's friends and the city. He said people genuinely seem to be behind the effort.

"The ceremony was absolutely gorgeous (and) a very nice tribute to her," Craig said. "There's not many times in life when a parent can see how the world perceives your child -- it was a tragic testimony to her."

The new park will add 13 additional acres to an existing 5 acres which is already developed. The Henderson Girls Softball League helped select many of the park's amenities, including three lighted ballfields, a concession stand, picnic ramada, tot-lot playground, restrooms and an open play area.

Construction is scheduled to be completed in August and the park is expected to open in the fall.