CHAMPION — The Van Riper State Park has some exciting events for all ages happening over the weekend.

After over a year of planning, a new playground will officially be unveiled at the park. This will be the second playground at Van Riper but with some newer features that the previous one did not have.

Van Riper Park Rangers are excited to open the playground to the public.

“They just got sidewalk poured down yesterday, it looks really nice down there. It has been a longtime coming, they looked a longtime for grants and things like that and so we built a playground early this summer. Kept kids off it for quite a while and kind of let the grass grow back in and stuff,” said Debra Gill, Van Riper Lead Ranger.

The dedication ceremony for the playground will be on Saturday at eleven. Van Riper will also be holding a spooky event to get children ready for Halloween. This weekend is the last Harvest Fest celebration for the entire year.

At this event, children will get to participate in a variety of fun activities.

“We’ve got trick or treating and we close down all the roads so no one has to worry about vehicles or anything like that, so that’s a big hit with the kids, they all wear their costumes and wonder around. It’s a ton of fun and then tomorrow night we’ll do a haunted hike through a section of trails that we have set up,” said Park Ranger, Matena Coron.

Any camper along with their families are invited to stop by both of these events.