John West Park features playgrounds, exercise equipment, pavilions, and entertainment venues such as concerts and movie nights.
Coastal Point Staff
Ocean View Police Chief Kenneth McLaughlin will be among the people sitting in a dunking tank at John West Park on Friday night as part of a Classic Movie Night celebration. The theme and movie for the night will be “Field of Dreams,” starring Kevin Costner.
Town Mayor Carol Hack said the evening’s event, scheduled for July 26 at 6 p.m., will have a baseball theme.
McLaughlin will be in the tank from 6:15 to 6:30 p.m.
Also waiting in the tank to see if guests have the right fastball to hit into the water will be Lord Baltimore Elementary School physical education teacher Mark Banks (6-6:15 p.m.), Ocean View Brewing Company head brewer Taylor Smith (6:30-6:45 p.m.), School Resource Officer Reece Bradshaw (6:45-7:00 p.m.), K-9 Officer Justin Hopkins (7-7:15 p.m.) and businessman Steven Soules (7:15-7:30 p.m.).
Participation in the dunk tank is determined by donations, as is the opportunity for guests to see how fast they can pitch or hit a baseball. Donated funds will be used to train and equip OVPD K-9s.
Hack said town leaders are hoping to raise $3,000.
Ocean View Police Department’s police dog, Oli, will be participating in the classic movie night. There will also be police dog demonstrations and dogs from other police agencies will be participating.
You can also have your photo taken next to large cutouts of actors from the film, and guests can enjoy freshly made popcorn when the movie begins at 8:30 PM.
Sherman the Shorebird, the mascot for the Delmarva Shorebirds baseball team from Salisbury, Maryland, will also be making an appearance.
The beer garden will be open and will be selling canned beer for $6 a pop, and Ocean View Family Restaurant will have menu items for sale.
“This Classic Movie Night is shaping up to be another great evening at John West Park, allowing the community to fund and support the police K-9 program in a fun way, and we can’t thank Ocean View Brewing enough for donating nine cases of beer to the beer garden,” Hack said.
Field of Dreams, released in 1989, is about a farmer named Ray who gets the now-classic one-liner, “If you build it, they will come.” And he does: He builds a baseball field in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, and they come.
“We’re hoping about 300 people will come. It’ll be fun to submerge the police chief, the gym teacher and the school security guard in the water, so we’re going to make it a big hit. We want it to be a family-friendly event,” Hack said.