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Leadership Lamar County to tackle peristyle
By Patrick Graham
The Paris News
Published October 10, 2009
It’s official.
The 2009-2010 Leadership Lamar County Class has selected restoration of the peristyle in Bywaters Park as its class project.
During Thursday’s monthly meeting, a majority of this year’s class members voted to take on the restoration project, which will be a collaborative effort between the class and the City of Paris, splitting the approximately $132,000 cost of the project evenly.
The peristyle is one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks, possibly second only to the Eiffel Tower with the cowboy hat on it, and it plays host to a slew of well-attended community events and outdoor weddings each year.
Considering the peristyle’s consistent use, it is somewhat difficult to believe the sad shape that this icon of the city has fallen into in recent times.
While less visible from the road, closer inspection reveals the structural defects that have developed over the years and the temporary solutions put in place to try and address them. The shifting Paris soil has taken its toll on the peristyle’s foundation, and as a result, there are columns and headers and steps at angles they shouldn’t be, and there are multiple two by fours put in place in an effort to stem the tide of growing cracks and crevices.
The class and the city are going to fix the foundation issues plaguing the peristyle and also reconstruct the portions of the landmark in need of repair or replacement. In the end, the class and the city intend to have the peristyle restored to its former glory.
I think this is a fantastic project for the Leadership Lamar County Class, and here are some reasons why:
• Addressing the peristyle’s structural issues was inevitable. If the peristyle had continued to deteriorate it was a lawsuit waiting to happen, and by the class taking on half the cost there will be significant savings to the taxpayers on the project that otherwise would not have occurred. Doing it now instead of later should also hold down the cost some.
• Many members of the community gather at the peristyle on a consistent basis. Being able to make it a place to be proud of once again is important from both a historical and a quality of life standpoint, and it is going to be a great legacy for this year’s class to leave behind.
• Downtown, the heart of any city, is also where East meets West here in Paris, enabling the class to literally and figuratively do a project benefiting all of the residents of Paris, no matter which side of town you might live on.
As a member of this year’s Leadership Lamar County Class, I’m looking forward to getting started on the project, which should be completed before this year’s class graduates in May. I know both myself and the other members of the class will do our dead-level best to help our new president, John Mark Spencer of ServPro, raise the funding and manpower needed to get this job done and done right.
The class will need all the help it can get. If you would like to contribute to the cause, shoot me an e-mail at patrick.graham(at)theparisnews.com and let me know if you would like to be part of this worthwhile endeavor.
Patrick Graham is the publisher of The Paris News.
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