Jackie Browning Park in Barren County celebrates expansion

GLASGOW, Ky. – It’s been in the works for nearly two years now. A pair of new ball fields along with better safety protection like shady areas and netting behind home plate are getting fans at Jackie Browning Park in Barren County ready to hit the diamond at the end of spring, and kicking off the summer season.

“We’ve added score towers behind each field, home plate… new restrooms. We’ve added new playgrounds, we’ve added additional parking. We’ve paved our existing parking lot, traffic control parking lot… allotted parking lot, and then we remodeled our concession stands, and our previous restrooms,” Barren County Parks director Chris Jennings says.

While these changes are great for the park, it also helps bring tourism dollars in from around the area, and even from other states like Illinois.

“It’s huge for our restaurants, our local shops here, our hotels… and we’re just hoping that Jackie Browning Park can play a small part… what it can do to the economic here for sure,” Jennings says.

Even a former Judge Executive is excited to see the progress on the park she helped build back in 2007.

“I just look around at the people, the mothers, the grandparents, the fathers, all the people here that was here with their children at this park in Glasgow, Kentucky. I don’t know about you all, but I am so proud of it… I love it, it’s one of the greatest things the County has ever done,” Davie Greer, who served from 2002-2014 as Barren County Judge Executive says.

Current Judge Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd says with these changes, she hopes Jackie Browning Park becomes a shining example.

“We want to continue to make this the staple in all of the parks locally… because we have kids playing in this league now from Barren, Hart, Metcalfe and even Allen County are playing in our league right now… and I think we even have a few Warren and Simpson County kids are playing in the league. So thank you to everyone that has brought us to this point,” she says.