Wildcats - A day in the park.

Mike Behrhorst pauses from his work to replace park bench seats Saturday morning and scans the vacant lot at South Second and Mulberry streets.

He envisions a sand volleyball court, a kickball field and other improvements where a former school and later City Hall once stood before the building was torn down years ago.

“Mike has been eyeing this lot ever since we moved to town a little over a year ago,” his wife, Kandace Behrhorst, said as she rakes along the edge of the flower garden in the southwest corner of the grassy tract some call Farmers Market Park. Vendors soon will sell their produce and other wares at Louisburg Farmers Market on the south side of the plot, which encompasses a city block.

Nearby, Behrhorst’s 11-month-old daughter, Addison, supervises the work Mom, Kat Clark and Cecily French are doing in the flower garden from her vantage point in a stroller. The group will be replacing mulch and adding three rose bushes to the flower garden, planted by the Louisburg Garden Club.

Across the way, several men are replacing park bench seats, trimming trees, putting in a rock garden around the farmers market sign and resetting parking-stall blocks at the park, just west of the downtown business district.

“Our hometown in Iowa has parks where festivals and other activities are held, and we weren’t sure what type of activities and festivals took place in Louisburg when we moved here last March,” said Mike Behrhorst, who hails from Iowa Falls, Iowa. “We walked by this park early last summer and thought it would be a great place for sand volleyball and kickball, where people could come together and meet and make new friends. Or, after events like the car show, come sit in the park and have a picnic.”

The Behrhorsts and Kat and Larry Clark started the Wildcats Bible Study Group. Members of the group, which meets Sunday evenings at the Behrhorsts’ home in Prairie Crossings, were performing the work Saturday as a community service project. Wildcats stands for “Walking In the Lord’s Divine Command Always willing To Serve,” and its members come from various denominations.

“We plan to do more projects at the park and elsewhere,” Kat Clark said. “We’re hoping others will want to come and help us in the future.”

Mike Behrhorst said the group will take its plans for the sand volleyball court and kickball field to the Louisburg Parks Commission in the future. The city would have to approve any amenities the group wants to add to the park.

After eating a plate of biscuits and gravy at the Louisburg High School band’s nearby garage sale in the West Gym, Sandy Peterson stops to offer her assistance to the ladies working in the flower garden. She drops to her knees to help prepare the garden for new mulch, half of which Orscheln Farm & Home donated for the project.

“I’m just doing something I love to do,” says Peterson, a gardening enthusiast. “We moved to Louisburg two years ago (from Anderson, Mo.,) and just love it here. It’s a very community-minded town.”

To learn more about the Bible study group or volunteer to work at its community service projects, call (913) 636-1862.