WORK which has helped to rejuvenate a Tyne Valley park has been recognised on a national stage - in the Keep Britain Tidy Network Awards. In recent years, Eastwoods Park, in Prudhoe, has seen many improvements; including a new play area, a new multi-use games area, new seating, basketball nets, a unique dog exercise area and the renovation of the old bowls pavilion to become a cafe and community hub. The Network Awards mark excellence and innovation in improving local environmental quality and the Eastwoods Park project was one of only three shortlisted nationally in the ‘Community Engagement category, which rewards action that has empowered communities to take responsibility and contribute to improving the quality of their local environment.
In 1963, UT student Lloyd Birdwell, BA ’64, MA ’66, founded Eeyore’s Birthday Party to honor the grumpy donkey from A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories. An instant hit, the annual event quickly outgrew its original home of Eastwoods Park, eventually moving to Pease Park on the edge of West Campus in 1974.
UT photojournalism student Lisa Davis caught the event in all its glory in 1983. Originally featuring maypole dancing and beer chugging, Eeyore’s Birthday now represented the full gamut of Austin’s weird and wacky: body paint, drum circles, fancy dress, and, indeed, that famously malcontented donkey. Davis, BJ ’84, became a renowned local photographer, documenting the city’s political and cultural life with kinetic vigor. She died by suicide in 1995, but her photographic archive is preserved at the Austin History Center.