Ronald Reagan Voice of Freedom Park

A long drive north of downtown on I-​75, the Voice of Freedom Park looks to be a relatively new park, or at least, a park that has seen a lot of changes recently. There is a huge, amazing playground, plenty of paved trails to walk, clean restroom facilities, and a beautiful lake to explore filled with birds and other aquatic life.
However, Voice of Freedom Park, for the most part, doesn’t feel very park-​like. There is a ton of empty wasted space. Beyond what I mentioned above, the park is a bunch of overgrown farm fields with nothing. It’s the perfect example of a park placed smack in the middle of suburban sprawl. It’s artificial… so obviously man-​made and sterile. It also doesn’t help that the park is surrounded by shopping centers and office parks on all sides. This place desperately needs trees!
Another downside is the fee for annual parking. It’s $ 5 for an annual pass that gets you into all of the Butler County MetroParks. This is less than the pass for the Hamilton County Parks system, but we have tried several other MetroParks since buying our vehicle permit only to find most of them to be awful! They lack features and maintenance. Bummer!
Overall, if you are in West Chester, this is an okay place to take lunch, take a stroll, or let the kids play. Otherwise, it isn’t a destination.

This is a nice park to walk around if it’s not too hot. It’s a $ 5 yearly admission pass to walk the park system part. But, you can also just walk the rest of it without paying. Since it’s a new park, the trees are not full grown. But a lot of birders come here to see ducks and other species native to prairies. There is a lake and snack machines and the paved trail meanders along the lake edge. They held some water-​skiing competition finals here not too long ago. So, it’s not a tiny lake. You can also fish and paddle boat.
It’s an interesting location; Voice of America park, because it’s part of the whole VOA («the official external radio and television broadcasting service of the United States federal government”-courtesy of Wikipedia) propaganda era left over from WWII. This locale was decommissioned during the Reagan era. However, VOA still operates. So, if you do a little (careful of your footing because of big divots in the earth) walking outside the park, proper, you can find the cement footings of the huge radio antennas that used to dominate the area (you can even see them on google maps if you look closely). Apparently, people who used to live here when it was active could receive the signal through their appliances even when their radios were not on (testimonial from my neighbor). You can still see the strange electrical grid for the antennas as you drive through the Tylersville entrance on your way to Rumpke’s single-​stream recycling drop off center.

I had no idea how extensive the Ronald Reagan Voice of Freedom Park was until I visited recently.
I had been to Wiggly Field, a small sect of the park, but had not fully explored everything else.
The RRVOFP (it’s a mouthful) features a man-​made fishing and boating lake where visitors can fish for Trout, Bass, Sunfish, and Bluegill… as long as they have a valid fishing permit from Butler County Metro Parks. There are some pretty strict rules and regulations about how many fish fisherman can take home but I still saw many father and son duos taking part in the activity. There is a little boathouse that checks permits
I personally wanted to rent a paddle boat, though my friend said no. They are only $ 8.50 an hour for West Chester residents (prove it by showing your ID), though!
The park also features a banquet facility and a gazebo that can be rented for weddings and other functions. If it weren’t for the Hamilton-​Mason road construction going on so close to the lake, it’d be a picturesque spot for a wedding!