Dedication Ceremony
for the Henkel Gazebo

July 4, 2001

This evening we are a community gathered to honor the birth of our nation and to celebrate our friendship. Once again as so many times before, Newcom Park is the place we choose to come together.

This park is the spot where we as a neighborhood gather to share our joys, to talk about the day's happenings, to celebrate weddings. We join here to celebrate holidays and to share picnic lunches with each other.

The Gazebo has become a focal point of our neighborhood and symbolizes all that is good about this community we call Oregon. We have lavished this structure with greenery to welcome the holiday season. We have gathered around its limestone columns to sing Yuletide carols. Banners and flags hang here to honor our country. We have gathered under its copper dome to seek shelter from the rain and to simply sit and share food and drink.

Today, we gather in the shadow of the Gazebo to honor two people who embody the spirit of community and family. Bill and Joanne Henkel are forever a part of the bricks and mortar of this neighborhood and will forever be a part of its breath. They are, in fact a part of the living Gazebo that is the soul of this neighborhood.

It is fitting this evening, that we dedicate this structure in the names of William and Joanne Henkel. Today and forever, this Gazebo will be known as The Henkel Gazebo.

- Mike Martin