Jeff Baxter

Baxter

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Today is the first official day of summer. Jeff Baxter, superintendent of the Allen County Parks Department, spoke with editorial writer Stacey Stumpf about opportunities for summer fun at the county parks.

Here are excerpts of the interview; listen to the entire interview by going to The Journal Gazette’s home page at www.journalgazette.net, click “opinion,” then click “5 Questions for Jeff Baxter.”

1 How many parks are in the county park system?

The county park system has four. There’s Fox Island that’s about 605 acres on the southwest side of Allen County. Metea is about 250 acres. It’s northeast, up by Leo-Cedarville. Payton Park is about 40 acres. It’s located in between (Indiana) 3 and Coldwater (Road) on Hathaway Road. And then Cook’s Landing is just about 2.5 acres, and it’s right on the Cedar Creek at Shoaff and Coldwater roads.

2 What is the most popular attraction at the county parks?

Well, it varies. Probably all the woods and forests that we have. During the summertime, it tends to be our lakes. We do have a lot of mosquitoes so … The lake is one of those areas where we get a little bit of wind, so it’s not so bad. But all of our trails, we’ve got glacial sand dunes here at Fox Island, all of our trails and nature.

3 What are some of the activities you have going on this summer?

We do have our summer day camp series. We do five weeks out here at Fox Island and then two weeks at Metea. Right now, this week we have fishing camp, and we’re full at 30 or 31 kids. We’ve got those camps all summer long.

4 How many visitors do you get in the summer?

During the summer, between 4,000 or 5,000.

5 What is your favorite thing to do here at the parks during the summer?

Here at the parks, it’s watching the kids, especially down at the lake. They have a blast swimming in the lake and digging in the sand!

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