Butler County’s state parks preparing for summer rush
Summer is in the air and the three state parks serving Butler County — Moraine State Park, Jennings Environmental Education Center and McConnells Mill State Park — are preparing for their busiest times of year.
While all three parks are open all year long, it is only during the summer when they come fully alive, with activities that aren’t available year-round or aren’t participated in as often during the winter.
“At Moraine, we have swimming, boating and kayaking. The paved bike trail gets used a lot in the summer,” said Brian Flores, assistant park manager at Moraine and McConnells Mill. “Over at McConnells Mill, we have a lot of hiking, wildflowers, wildlife viewing and whitewater kayaking.”
Each of the three parks holds its most popular event of the year during the summer months. Jennings’ centerpiece event, Celebrate the Bloom, when the public is invited to sample the park’s famous prairie, is set for Saturday, July 26.
“We run summer camps for most of the summer for a variety of age groups,” said Wil Taylor. “We do guided prairie walks as well when the prairie is in bloom and we do evening bird walks.”
Moraine’s centerpiece event is the annual Moraine State Park Regatta on Aug. 2 and 3. Additionally, the Moraine Preservation Fund organizes cruises along the massive man-made Lake Arthur on the Preston’s Pearl pontoon boat, with the first cruise of the year launching on Wednesday, May 28.
McConnells Mill’s major annual event is the Heritage Festival, held each September. The festival serves as a celebration of the park’s historic grist mill and the time period during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when it was operational. The grist mill itself opened for tours Saturday, May 17, with regular hours from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays until late September.
The three parks also anticipate high attendance on summer holidays, such as Memorial Day and Independence Day. This is especially true for Moraine, which has year-round cabins, as well as beaches surrounding Lake Arthur.
“Memorial Day weekend is one of the bigger weekends coming up here,” Flores said. “We make sure we have sand ready for the beaches or if we need to get new sand, or picnic tables need to be prepped or made or repaired, or bathrooms need to be turned on. A lot of it's just day-to-day operational stuff that we need.”
For all three parks — especially Moraine and McConnells Mill — preparing for summer means the hiring of an army of seasonal staff members to keep the parks in shape.
Between them, Flores says that the two parks hire between 25 and 30 seasonal staff members for various tasks such as environmental education, maintenance and park safety.
“We have seasonal educators. We have seasonal resource rangers that assist with the beaches and helping out with public safety. We have office staff that help with selling launch permits and answering phones and giving directions,” Flores said. “And of course, we have our seasonal maintenance crews that help with mowing and weed whacking.”
According to Taylor, Jennings hires seasonal educators, not just for the summer months, but during the school year, when students are brought to the park for educational events.
“We have two seasonal educators that come on in September and work through May, and they handle most of our school programs,” Taylor said. “And then we have staff that comes on to support the summer effort as well.”
