Sacramento Plans To Rename Park For Hometown Hero LeVar Burton

According to the Sacramento Bee, LeVar Burton is expected to have a newly revamped park named after him. Geordi LaForge himself, LeVar Burton, was a native of Sacramento, California, the state’s capital, before making it big with Roots, Reading Rainbow, and of course Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Burton moved to South Sacramento when he was 3 years old and attended St. Pius Preparatory School before attending the University of Southern California (USC) on a drama scholarship. Burton has always been proud of his Sacramento roots, his mother was a social worker for the county of Sacramento for many years as well. He was previously honored in 2016 by being one of the inaugural members of the local “Walk of Stars.”

LeVar Burton with his star on the Sacramento “Walk of Stars” in 2016 (Twitter/LeVar Burton)

The Sacramento City Parks and Recreation Commission voted unanimously on the proposal to rename the park after Burton. The City Council will meet to give the renaming a final approval next month. The proposal is expected to go through as it has strong support from the community and city leaders.

Currently, the park is named “Richfield Park” simply because Richfield Way is one of the closest roads to the park. The SacBee describes the park:

The recently-upgraded 3-acre Richfield Park, south of Meadowview Road and east of the I-5, features basketball courts, a turf amphitheater, picnic area with shade canopy, nature-themed playground and fitness stations.

Burton responds to the news

Burton’s new show debuts tomorrow

Burton remains busy with his new podcast LeVar Burton Reads and can be seen as a guest star in tonight’s episode of NCIS: New Orleans. He also stars in one of the episodes of the new YouTube Original sci-fi anthology series Weird City, which premieres tomorrow, February 13th. Burton talks about the show in the promo below.

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Very Cool!

That’s a nice gesture. Congrats to him!

This is an appropriate honor for a great human being. Levar Burton does our town proud, as well as our state, and our species.

Congratulations to Levar ! Way to go to represent the 916!

I like Mr. Burton and his contributions to Trek and our culture.
I am happy to hear this news.

Good for you Lavar!

Thanks, Trekmovie!

Not sure why my comment was deleted but Levar was on NCIS New Orleans not NCIS LA. LA isn’t on until Sunday, and I just watched the episode.

You pointed out an error in the article (rather rudely at that). The error was fixed last night. We don’t generally feel the need to keep a snarky “I found an error” comment, it’s off topic.

A truly wonderful and good man. He deserves it. His reading Rainbow had an impact on my childhood, and so did Geordi on Star Trek.

A well deserved honor.

A very solid contributor to everything he does and seems to be a heck of a nice guy. Kudos, Mr. Burton.

Slight correction: Levar did not attend Christian Brothers HS. He attended St. Plus Prep. Which was a catholic bording school in Galt CA. St. Pius Prep closed in the mid 70’s.

Yeah odd, the SacBee got that wrong. I fixed our article.

That is so awesome!!

LeVar Burton is a supreme being. Star Trek was very lucky to have him, and I am thrilled for the honor being bestowed upon him.

But Oh. My. G–. Just finished watching the premiere episode of Weird City that he’s in–what a misbegotten, offensive mess. I just hope this isn’t what Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone reboot is going to be like.

The thing here that surprised me is reading that Sacramento has a “Walk of Stars”! All I can think of off the top of my head are Dusty Baker and Mike Lange. Obviously there are more. :)

I love this man, remember watching Reading Rainbow in class back in ’98 when I was in first grade and thinking how cool it was that I was watching this guy I knew from Star Trek in school. Also his Community episode is def worth checking out!