Greg Brown, a Carmi man, known to many not only for his enterprising nature, but also for his giving nature was a happy man Tuesday afternoon. A 2 year process finally came to fruition with the dedication of Archie Brown Memorial Field just before 4pm. He began with comments thanking the many people who supported or assisted in the building of the field from concept to completion.
Together with his father and uncle, Brown said they thought it would make the most fitting memorial they could make to the late Archie Brown. “It’s a celebration of the sports that he loved. He didn’t want people to know some of the things he did. Once that information got out, it made it a little bit easier to do this without breaking any of hi secrets.”
Archie Brown was always arguably the biggest Carmi softball supporter in the town and played an important role when it matter most, “he was a big contributor in the late ‘90s when the school system was considering cutting the program.”
Grandson Greg was nearly overwhelmed as he spoke about what the project means for him. “This is a big sense of closure for me. Ya know, my grandpa worked with my dad, his partner, and I was privileged to get to work with him until the day he just couldn’t work anymore. And he loved it. The end was pretty rough. I’ve been looking for some closure and I think this did it.”
And while the intention of this coverage has no pitch, when it comes to Greg Brown and the amount of projects he is willing to tackle, it’s hard to avoid an infomercial sounding “but wait, there’s more.”…
With the softball field dedicated and handed over to the high school, there’s still more work to do on the adjoining Jr. Pro Football practice field. We asked Brown about that as well. “The other side of the park is still not complete yet. John Evers started this program a long time ago and he and my grandpa were very close friends and involved in a lot of stuff. My grandpa helped him with a little boost to get that program going so I wanted to memorialize that. We’ve still got some odds and ends to finish. The lights aren’t done. The weather has been brutal in trying to build a ball field.”
Archie’s son Gary threw out the ceremonial first pitch. And the Middle School softball crew broke the field in with a dominant 13-1 win over Flora.
