Riverside will celebrate the grand opening of a new dog park this Saturday.

The 110-foot-by 115-foot area, named Butler Park, was the Eagle Scout project of one Matt Butler, though the name is entirely coincidental; the park is named after the fictional dog of Captain James Kirk.

Butler – the park’s namesake – was featured in the movie Star Trek: Generations.

Butler – the Eagle Scout from Troop 235– coordinated the park’s construction. City Administrator Christine Yancey said Butler was instrumental in constructing the park.

“He basically organized it, he got the quote for the fences… he organized his group of scouts and adults to clear the whole area… once poles were set, they put the rocks in,” Yancey said.

Butler said he joined Cub Scouts in elementary school, following in the footsteps of his brother and friends and stuck with it, with Butler Park being a crowning achievement with the organization.

“It was just something that I saw him have a lot of fun in, I joined and I also had a lot of fun going on camp outs and everything,” he said. “It was definitely one of if not my favorite experiences here growing up.”

The park was one of many community service projects from Butler, who grew up in Riverside.

“I really like to help out,” he said. “I think that’s from scouting and just being in a small town and whatnot, I do what I can… help people out when I can.”

Alongside scouting, Butler got involved with Lego League in middle school before joining FTC in high school, both robotics programs through FIRST, an international series of engineering competitions for K-12 students that emphasizes professionalism and community involvement.

“I was on a Lego League team with my brother and some of our friends and we went up through middle school,” he said. “Now Highland, the high school, has a robotics team… I really liked Legos, and then I graduated from that into robotics in high school, so I really like robots and that kind of stuff.”

Butler graduated from Highland this spring and said he planned to attend Iowa State for Engineering in the fall.

Though Eagle Projects take different forms for every scout, Butler said he had personal reasons to make his a dog park.

“I’m a big dog kind of guy,” Butler said. “I think a part of it was that the dog we had around the farm disappeared, we didn’t know where it went. That kind of threw me to it, wanting to help the dogs in the community have a space like that.”

The park opens at 11 a.m. this Saturday. It’s located in Hall Park in Riverside, near the softball diamond.