By Will Sullivan

Guest Columnist 

When I go to the coffee house, I generally read but I also keep an antenna up for anything in conversations around me that might make for a good column or provide a tip to a story that I can pass on to my friends at the paper.

This time City councilman Wayne Gouguet was sitting with Buddy McDonald and a group of other people. Suddenly he opined that the green space created when the old Crosby Memorial Hospital was demolished be named for the Crosbys

As he said, they were an important part of Picayune and Pearl River County for decades. They provided the town with the hospital and the library. They provided the town and the county with the greatest undiscovered tourist draw in the region.

By the way, it is only undiscovered, or just barely discovered by local residents. Since Crosby Arboretum’s creation and opening, it has been a draw for visitors both nationally and internationally.

Pinecote Pavilion has earned international architectural awards, and the arboretum is recognized as a unique and premier public garden. We’ll leave further discussion of the arboretum for other times. Right now, the focus is on the green space.

Gouguet’s suggestion was well received by McDonald and others in the group. After the crowd thinned, I went over and offered my support for Gouguet’s suggestion. I had been wondering what to call it, figuring with the hospital gone, so went the name.

The city councilman said he hoped to bring up the proposal at a City Council meeting, possibly the next one in a week or so.

He said when I saw him again at the coffee house that he had run into very little opposition, with most of it coming from Crosby detractors who show mostly envy in their detraction. Only one person came up with a viable reason, he said, a person who remained angry over the Crosbys trying to prevent canoers and other boaters from using Hobolochitto Creek through or adjacent to their property.

They lost the lawsuit and abided by its decision, so forgive and forget. However, as an old farm editor, I understand and respect their opposition, though I disagree with them and think streams should be even more open than they are to public use

However, I also understand that a small minority of users trash every place they go. Many of those miscreants maliciously burn over private property, including homes, barns and other structures and some shoot livestock.

The Crosbys were a large part of Picayune and property they gave the city should continue to bear the family name. Gouguet also came up with the idea of naming it Crosby Green rather than Crosby Park and erecting some sort of monument bearing the name.

Either Crosby Green or Crosby Park is fitting, as is some sort of monument bearing the name.