John Gooden generally wears several figurative hats around the city of Kingfisher with multiple ongoing projects.

At a recent Lions Club meeting, Gooden wore - literally - two shirts.

One such shirt was to represent Kingfisher Trails, which is now in its 20th year.

“Things have come a long way, step by step,” Gooden said as the civic club’s guest speaker.

Since its inception and with Gooden at the helm, the trails project has won 13 of 13 grants for which it has applied.

“And No. 14 is ready to send,” Gooden said.

Money already secured will extend the trails from north of Cimarron Nursing Center to 13th Street where it will connect with the trails on the south end of Briscoe Park.

There is also money that will help place a trail on the south side of Overstreet that will connect with the trail that runs north and south from the east side of the Stonebriar addition, across Will Rogers and into the park.

“And within a couple of years, we should be able to go from the swinging bridge (at Kingfisher Park) to El Charro,” Gooden said of future parts of the project.

“We are ever so close to having a loop around the entire city,” he said of Kingfisher Trails.

Once it hits that stage, there will be about 12 miles of trails for residents and visitors. There are currently more than seven miles to use.

“I think we’ll find Kingfisher is going to be a bit of a destination for that,” Gooden said.

Gooden then shed his Kingfi sher Trails t-shirt to reveal one representing Newfield Community Park.

Gooden said the city had received three major grants for the many projects within the overall projects.

“You’ve been seeing a lot of results,” he said. “Because we’re now toward the end of construction.”

Now comes the next phase, he said.

“What we need to do now is get some vision,” Gooden said.

Concerts? Festivals?

Yes and yes, he said. But what kind and what else can take place in the park?

“I want to get a consensus of what people want to do,” he said.

Among several other features, the park includes a bandshell, playground, pump track, dog park, arboretum, pond, covered picnic areas and a festival grounds.

The festival grounds, he said, will have a place to host 10 different food trucks at one time.

So now that the space is nearing the point in being ready to use, Gooden said his duties will transition to helping make the events happen.

“I don’t know what all we can do there, which is why we need to talk about that,” Gooden said. “It can be really easy to put together some vision for the park’s future.”