What started with one man’s desire to give back, will now serve as a testament to the impact he had on the city he called home.

  City leaders in Hampton, on Saturday, unveiled a bronze plaque naming the park at the train depot after the late Terry F. Jones. He designed and built the park while serving as the chairman of the Hampton Downtown Development Authority.

  Jones’ daughter, Kathy Pillatzki, expressed her appreciation for everyone who came to the park to honor her father.

  “There were probably 75 people who were there for the unveiling,” said Pillatzki. “It was very gratifying for the family to see how many people remembered him and were there to celebrate with us.”

  Pillatzki said her father wore a number of hats prior to making an indelible mark on the city of Hampton.

  “He was an Army veteran, and he also worked for several years for the city of Atlanta as a police officer,” said Pillatzki. “Then he spent 36 working for Delta Airlines.”

  Pillatzki said her father worked in several capacities for Delta over the years. When he retired, he was the superintendent of flight control at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

  “He moved our family in 1967 to Hampton,” said Pillatzki. “During all of the time he worked for Delta, he worked shift work, rotating shifts.”

  Pillatzki said because of her father’s work schedule at the airport, he was unable to commit a great deal of time to outside interests.

  “As soon as he retired, he started volunteering,” said Pillatzki. “He said it was time to give back to the town.”

  Jones served as the chairman of the Hampton DDA from 2003 to 2006. During that time, Pillatzki said, her dad applied for a number of grants to build a park at the train depot.

  Pillatzki, the third of Jones’ four children, is the director of the Henry County Library System. She said her dad “poured his heart and soul” into bringing a park to the train depot.

  “It was a parking lot, and he wanted to turn it into a park,” said Pillatzki. “He was able to get some grants to build everything. He selected every fixture in the park, every bench, every lamppost.”

  The project, said Pillatzki, soon became a family affair. Jones’ wife, Bunny, and late daughter, June, also contributed to the park’s creation.

  “He and my mother selected all of the landscaping,” said Pillatzki. “He put a fountain in. He did everything except the stonework. After that happened, the city was able to get a streetscape grant to do renovation to all of the storefronts on Main Street, sidewalks and landscaping.”

  Pillatzki acknowledged that, at the time her father came up with the idea for the park, he initially encountered opposition from city leaders. However, she said, that opposition didn’t last long.

  “The more it shaped up, the more everybody loved it,” said Pillatzki.

  The park has been used regularly since its completion in 2005, as a venue for concerts, weddings, prom pictures and other events. The park, which was paid for by SPLOST funds, also hosts the city’s Veterans Day observance each year.

  The plaque bearing Jones’ name can be seen at the north end of the train depot. Sadly, Jones was not at the park for Saturday’s unveiling. He passed away in February, after being diagnosed with a terminal illness just after Christmas of 2018.

  Jones spent much of January this year in hospice care at his home. That same month, the City Council voted to name the park in Jones’ honor. Pillatzki said city leaders came to her dad’s house to present him with a framed rendition of the plaque before his passing.

  Pillatzki said Hampton Mayor Steve Hutchison and Councilman Henry Byrd were “instrumental” in getting a proposal to the full city council to name the park after her father.

  “He was very pleased,” said Pillatzki of her father. “He was a very low-key guy, but he was very pleased and very honored that they had chosen to do that for him. The city went to a lot of trouble to make sure it was very nice.”

  The mayor’s wife, Linda Hutchison, worked as Hampton’s Main Street director during the time that Jones was building the park. She said it took about a year for Jones to draw up plans for the park and implement them.

  “I was fortunate to watch him and his late daughter June, literally, build portions of that park with their own hands,” said Linda Hutchison. “If Terry hadn’t seen that vision, it might still be a parking lot.”

  Mayor Hutchison commended Jones for his dedication in bringing the park to the train depot.   “Terry was a personal friend of mine,” said the mayor. “Terry was a visionary. He did a lot of stuff I didn’t even know about. He had a vision to do something with that parking lot. He built that park for the people of Hampton.”