The Owensboro Parks and Recreation Advisory Board approved a recommendation from the Northwest Neighborhood Alliance to rename Max Rhoads Park to Moneta Sleet Jr. Park. The decision will be presented at a later date to Owensboro City Commissioners, who has to give the final approval for the name change.
The park is currently named after Max Rhoads, a former Owensboro City Manager and WWII and Korean War veteran who died in 2008.
The name change recommendation came from Rafe Buckner, Chair of the Northwest Neighborhood Alliance.
Buckner said he previously asked Rhoads’ living family members their opinion and that Rhoads’ grandson was supportive and only asked that a marker or note be made somewhere on the property that it was previously named for his grandfather.
Amanda Rogers, Director of Owensboro Parks & Recreation, said that the naming of the park would fall under the historic places, events, and people category of their newly amended requirements for renaming sites and facilities.
City Commissioner Mark Castlen was at the meeting to present history about Sleet, who was born in Owensboro in 1926. Sleet went on to obtain a master’s degree in journalism from New York University.
Eventually, through a close relationship with Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., Sleet photographed King’s work during the movement in the 1960s and was one of the only photojournalists allowed at King’s funeral.
At the funeral, Sleet took a photo of Coretta Scott King with her daughter — an image that earned Sleet a Pulitzer Prize for Best Feature Photo, making Sleet the first Black winner of a Pulitzer Prize in journalism.
“It’s only fitting that we go ahead and name the park after him as a way to raise awareness for his accomplishments,” Castlen said.
Max Rhoads Park currently sits the neighborhood Sleet grew up in and has a historical marker with a brief history of him already.
In following the request of the Rhoads family, Castlen said there is potential for enough money in the budget to build a gazebo at the park which could potentially be named in honor of Rhoads.
