 Hello, Columbia. Welcome to our edition of Telling Our Story, Exploring the Parks. I am your host, Wanda Austin Herndon. Join us as we explore our parks. Oh, Columbia, welcome to Southeast Park. Today's edition of Telling Our Story will take a view of Southeast Park. So come along and take a tour. Southeast Park, located at 651 Hazelwood Road in the Ganas Ferry Corridor, is a 64-acre park surrounding a 6-acre pond. Opened in 2008 with funding from the U.S. Tennis Association, the park features 12 hard tennis courts and four soft courts. Care was taken during the construction to the site that the courts are among towering oaks and hickory trees, providing a lovely setting and valuable shade. Also coming this spring, they will be adding four additional pickleball courts to add to the outdoor fun. Some of the best courts to be found and definitely a great place to come. I mean the atmosphere, you've got a natural setting, you've got a pond, you have wildlife, just a good place to come play tennis. And it's free, which is really nice. Views from the ponds' broad walk are gorgeous, showcasing a grove of live oaks named treasured by our city foresters. Our pond is stocked with fish to allow park visitors to enjoy fishing themselves and perhaps share that with some young ones. Our park 59 disc golf course was built in 2012 and the course runs through the park's wooded areas making for great scenery and challenging throws. There are a lot of lessons to be learned here, including how to protect our aquatic species. Did you know that you actually hurt wildlife when you feed them bread? Processed and refined people food can sicken our ducks, geese, turtles and fishes causing sickness and early death. So Columbia, let's skip the bread when we visit our parks. Well I come mostly to see friends and especially the rangers but the people I've met over the years but I come for the wildlife and I guess my main love is the deer in the park. We have several different groups of deer, some that are pretty well adjusted to humans. This wooded park has become a refuge of sort for wildlife such as foxes, deers and many other wildlife. As a matter of fact, few years back Ranger Barnes noticed a swarm of honeybees in a tree stump and they tried to relocate them but they came back. So now the rangers are studying beekeeping with the Midlands Beekeeper Association in order to become certified beekeepers and plan to share what they learn with our park visitors. We ended up taking a few beekeepers class with the local Midlands Beekeeper Club and from there we've expanded, you know, our bee family. We've got a large hive now here in the park. We've got this smaller hive here behind me and hopefully next year we can expand that to four or five more hives. And the overall goal is to provide a hands-on educational, you know, program to where we can show people the importance of, you know, native pollinators like like honeybees, bumblebees, butterflies and their major role that they play with crop production and food production, native plants and that sort of stuff. The park provides key habitat amid urban sprawls in the Gironospheric Corridor and is a valued nearby residence as well as savvy visitors from around the region. Come on out. Check it out. There is something here for everybody. If you just want to exercise a little bit, like I said, we've got several miles of trail. If you like tennis, we've got 16 tennis courts. If you want to get your kids out of the house and get them involved in something, you know, interesting, we've got the rangers that are here every day all day. So if you have any questions, you can ask the rangers. We'd be glad to give you a tour. Southeast Park is like an oasis in the city. You won't find 60 acres somewhere in the city limits with all the variety that, you know, the sports variety, but also the animals. If you could just come here and sit and be still for a few minutes, you'd be surprised at what you're going to see. And that's what I think makes this park very unique. So Columbia, come join us for a walk in the woods at Southeast Park. As with all our parks, our mission here at the City of Columbia Parks and Recreation is to change lives through a cultural of transformational leadership, innovation and phenomenal customer service. Thank you for joining us today. And please join us in the future for more episodes of telling our story, exploring the parks. And remember, we are Columbia.