Proctor Park at 499 Tracy Road in New Whiteland is shown on Wednesday. Efforts are underway to collect donations to create memorials for fallen Indiana State Trooper Aaron Smith and Johnson County Sheriff’s Deputy Tim Guyer.
Emily Ketterer | Daily Journal
A park tucked back in New Whiteland for years has served as a space to honor military veterans and public safety personnel.
Johnson County recently lost two “hometown heroes,” Indiana State Trooper Aaron Smith, of Franklin, and Johnson County Sheriff’s Deputy Tim Guyer, of Trafalgar. Efforts are now underway to honor both of them at New Whiteland’s Proctor Park.
The park at 499 Tracy Road was founded as a tribute to Sgt. Joseph E. Proctor, a Whiteland Community High School graduate and former New Whiteland resident who was killed while serving in Iraq in 2006. Town officials wanted to honor his life, and turned an 11-acre parcel of land on Tracy Road into a monument park.
In addition to a walking trail, fishing pond and playgrounds, numerous memorials and monuments dot the landscape. Individual memorials recognize veterans of all military branches, as well as first responders.
Maribeth Alspach, former New Whiteland clerk-treasurer, played a pivotal role in the creation of Proctor Park, and she still serves on the volunteer park committee. Alspach met with Smith’s widow, Megan Smith, at the park recently. The two talked about how Megan and Aaron Smith would visit Proctor Park regularly, because Aaron Smith served with James A. Waters, who has a memorial stone in the park. Waters, of Whiteland, died serving in Afghanistan in 2011.
Megan Smith wants to also honor her late husband in the park they visited so often. Together, she and Alspach are working to raise funds to place a memorial stone next to Waters’ and a brick on the “Walk of Freedom” at the front of the park to honor his service in the National Guard. They also want to place a brick along the back trail, called the “Pathway of Honor” to memorialize Aaron Smith’s police service.
Not long after she met with Megan Smith, Alspach got the call about Guyer passing away at the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy. She wants to honor him and his service to the county as well. Alspach knew Guyer for years because he served as New Whiteland’s building inspector.
She wants to place a brick for him on the Pathway of Honor to honor his law enforcement career, and she hopes to also engrave a bench to recognize his community service in 4-H and with Indian Creek schools.
“The park is for everyone. It’s not just New Whiteland’s park,” Alspach said. “As far as honoring a policeman, a fireman, a veteran, we don’t care where they are from, because we are free because they did what they did.”
Alspach’s goal is to raise between $11,000 and $21,000 for the memorials for Smith and Guyer and also to revitalize the back section of the park where the public safety walk is located. That area is in need of love, she said. She wants to redo some of the bricks in the walkway that shifted and also power wash the stones and benches in the park.
Many people know about the military memorials in Proctor Park at the front, but Alspach said people don’t realize everything at the back of the park, including the public safety honor walk.
“Families of police, fire and EMS people need to know what’s back here and that they can simply buy a brick and honor the service of their loved ones.”
Alspach has already started making calls to potential donors and wrote a letter to share publicly for anyone who wants to donate. She hopes to hold a fundraiser and get as many businesses involved as she can.
Proctor Park is special to Alspach, even though she’s now retired from her full-time job with the town. That’s why she’s stepping in to help honor Smith and Guyer.
“This is sacred to me,” Alspach said. “I retired a year ago, but I never retired from the park because I just love it. I do. I think that all of us have an obligation to honor the sacrifices that these men and women have made.”
HOW TO DONATE
Anyone wishing to donate to help establish Proctor Park memorials for Trooper Aaron Smith and Deputy Tim Guyer can contact Maribeth Alspach at [email protected] or visit the town of New Whiteland’s parks department web page for more information: www.in.gov/towns/new-whiteland/town-departments/parks-department/
