ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Belmont County has officially gone to the dogs.

The Belmont County Dog Park had its grand opening at noon on Thursday. The opening comes after two years of planning by Belmont County Sheriff Dave Lucas.

In 2022, Lucas approached the Belmont County Board of Commissioners with the idea of opening up a dog park. He told the commissioners if they would supply the land he would take care of everything else and the project would not cost the officials or residents of Belmont County a penny.

Lucas said he got the inspiration for the park while visiting a dog park with his dog Loki while he was on vacation in Florida.

“When I went down to Florida for the vacation home I started taking him to the local dog park, and I saw all of these other residents and seniors bring their dogs there and just saw how much the community was involved and what it did for them. Getting people out for not only the dogs to socialize but even the people, and it was just unbelievable,” Lucas said.

Once the commissioners gave Lucas the green light, he partnered with the Belmont County Correctional Institution where incarcerated individuals donated their time to supply the manual labor required to construct the park.

“It was a lot of hard work, and take me seriously – if it wasn’t for Belmont Correctional’s Warden David Gray at the time and now Warden Shelby Smith and the residents up there coming down here, this would have never happened.You’re looking at a lot of intense labor here and it just really came together,” Lucas added. “And I will say I’m proud of all the workers, and everything like that. I’ll put this dog park up against any dog park.”

In addition to the incarcerated individuals donating their time, the dog park also sought three different brackets of sponsorships. The first bracket was for any donation ranging from $1,000 to $4,999. Those donors included David and Bobbie Lucas, Kirk and Judy Porterfield, Lansing Sportsman’s Club, St. Clairsville Sam’s Club, Kolb & Son Excavating, Ohio-West Virginia Excavating, Bruce Seabright, AEP, Bill’s Towing, Absolute Concrete, Laroche Tree Service, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Richard Sunyoger, St. Clairsville Ohio Kennel Club, Pike’s Paving and Braido Memorials.

The second donation bracket available was any donation from $5,000 to $9,999, and that sponsorship was donated by Greg Ray. The final donation bracket available was any donation from $10,000 to $24,999, which came from the Belmont County Board of Commissioners and an anonymous donor.

In addition to the donations, the Belmont County Dog Park received a $27,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

At the grand opening Thursday, the county commissioners surprised Lucas by officially announcing that the Belmont County Dog Park’s name will be changed to the David M. Lucas Dog Park. The announcement came as a delightful yet emotional surprise for Lucas.

As he held back tears of joy Lucas jokingly said, “And I’m supposed to be the toughest guy in Belmont County.”

Lucas said that ever since he started his career in law enforcement, he has always had a great working relationship with the county commissioners while working on countless projects together. He wanted to complete this project with the commissioners because this will be Lucas’ final year as Belmont County sheriff.

“I wanted to do this project because I’m retiring. January 5 next year is my last day, and I wanted to do another project for Belmont County because to me, especially as being the sheriff, the community is the most important thing to me. If we don’t have the backing of the community, we can’t really do our job,” Lucas said. “I’ve been sheriff for 12 years, and 12 years ago to where we are now I have the respect of the community and we work together. This was a surprise and a nice shock.

“I just want to thank everybody and all of the donors, all the helpers, and everything like that. Look at what we’ve got, and it’s going to be here for years to come.”

Commission President Jerry Echemann spoke about the decision to honor Lucas.

“This isn’t the kind of thing we do every day,” Echemann said. “In general, we’re not really crazy about naming things after people. But in this case when the idea came to us to name this after the sheriff, we didn’t hesitate or argue. He’s just such a great guy.

“He does such a good job as sheriff, and then he did all of the work and organizing for this.”

He noted that an appropriate sign will be placed at the dog park, but due to the fact the commissioners wanted to surprise Lucas, the Belmont County Dog Park sign will remain intact until the David M. Lucas sign is constructed.

“I’m very happy to have it in the sheriff’s name, and it meant a lot to him as you can tell. When the announcement was made he teared up. But it’s just appropriate, and it’s something like a legacy when something like that happens when you get your name on something,” Echemann said.

The park is located behind the Belmont County Health Department off Ohio 331.