Plans for state grant application to buy Wilkshire Golf Course foiled

BOLIVAR, Ohio - A plan for a state grant application to buy Wilkshire Golf Course has fallen through due to lack of support from Lawrence Township trustees.

Trustees Mike Haueter, Donald Ackerman and Matthew Ritterbeck decided Thursday not to back the efforts of the property's owners and a Cleveland-area organization to get a Clean Ohio grant to buy the 182-acre course near Bolivar.

The 16-member advisory committee of the Tuscarawas County Park Department recommended on Tuesday that county commissioners support the Clean Ohio application, but the commissioners will not be asked to act because the township trustees' lack of support doomed the application.

The golf course is owned by Beth Easterday Futryk of Powell, Ohio, and Holly Easterday Adams of Savannah, Ga., whose late father John and grandfather Melvin built and developed the course. They have proposed selling the course to the West Creek Conservancy of Parma, which would have funded the purchase with a Clean Ohio grant.