The Smither Park project has benefitted from the collaboration of many artists but the overall project designer is Huntsville artist Dan Phillips. He was contacted for the work by a friend of his, Stephanie Smither, who wanted to create a park in the memory of her husband, John Smither, a long time board member of the Orange Show Center. Memorials are usually somber places, given to remembering what was lost. This memorial remembers instead what was given, and it does so with an abundance of joy.