THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 26, 1994 TAG: 9406240209
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAM STARR, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940626 LENGTH: Medium
The moniker stuck, even after the smelly heap was transformed into a beautiful park.
{REST} Next year, the growing mound of rubbish off Kempsville Road and Centerville Turnpike will be turned into another public park - but it won't be called Mount Trashmore II.
The Department of Parks and Recreation made certain there would be no namesake by holding a ``Name The Park'' contest last month.
Inundated with more than 500 suggestions for names, city officials picked but one after a screening process. The winning entry?
City View Park, courtesy of Florence ``Tossie'' Shaw.
Department director Susan D. Walston said that name was chosen because it was simple and ``very appropriate.''
``People have been calling the park Mount Trashmore II and we thought it would stick,'' said Walston.
She said the contest, co-sponsored by The Beacon and the Parks and Recreation Commission, was held ``because we wanted people to get involved. It turned out to be a lot of fun - we'd get entries from the same class. It really kind of caught on.''
Walston and others on the selection committee couldn't see people biking around Mount Trash No More or hiking up Mount Kilimanjunko, two of the names that were submitted.
Some of the finalists included Re-Creation Park, Seagull Hill, Reclamation Hill, Preservation Peak and Beacon Hill. But City View Park won out in the end.
``We're talking about a landfill whose height will be three times the height of Mount Trashmore,'' Walston said. ``You'll be able to see the whole view of the city and the tall buildings of Norfolk.''
The department held a picnic last week at Redwing Park to honor Shaw for her winning name. Shaw received a $100 savings bond and a certificate of recognition, and she will be the guest of honor at the park's opening in 1995. She was so excited at the picnic she couldn't eat the fried chicken, potato salad and baked beans.
``I'm tickled to death - I still can't believe it,'' said Shaw, a first-grade teacher at Glenwood Elementary School and resident of Middle Plantation. ``I mean, I named a park that's going to be there forever. It's quite an honor.
``I may put up a big sign in my front yard,'' she quipped.
Shaw, husband Arthur and their three sons entered the contest as a family project because she ``really didn't want to see a name up there that was so-so.'' They would sit around the dinner table at night and brainstorm, rattling off names until one struck their fancy.
``We came up with Rubbish Ridge one night but that was kind of silly,'' Shaw said, laughing. ``We chose City View Park because it's dignified, clean, simple and not long. We wanted a name people could be proud of.''
Shaw has lived in Virginia Beach for five years, since Arthur retired as a Navy captain, and is an enthusiastic booster of the city. There is nothing about Virginia Beach she dislikes, not even the muggy summers or the interstate traffic. The schools are ``excellent,'' the climate is ``beautiful,'' she said.
And she especially likes the way the city handled the park-naming contest.
``I think it's neat the way the city went to this effort to involve the community in the naming process,'' said Shaw, ``to give them ownership of their park.''
by CNB