Laura Davis and eight of the children from her day care expected a fun picnic lunch Friday at their favorite North Lawrence park.

Thomas Davis 5, Lawrence, was one of several day-care children who came Friday to Lyons Park in North Lawrence to have a lunch-time picnic, only to find the playground equipment and sidewalks vandalized with spray paint.

But what they discovered at Lyons Park took the wind right out of their sails. A vandal had gone on a spray-paint rampage, marking a yellow plastic slide with the letters “SK.” The vandal, or vandals, also sprayed picnic tables, trash cans and the park sidewalk.

“The kids were basically appalled. In their eyes, they get in trouble for drawing on the wall, but then they see their favorite place like this,” Davis said. “I mean, who would have done it?”

Davis said she reported the vandalism to police, and Fred DeVictor, director of Parks and Recreation, said officers later turned it over to his department because the graffiti appeared not to be gang-related.

A crew cleaned up the slide, other park equipment and trash cans, and repainted the picnic tables Friday afternoon, which cleared the park of all markings except those on the sidewalk, which will be cleaned up soon, DeVictor said.

“Unfortunately, these kinds of things happen. It’s part of our job to keep the parks looking good,” DeVictor said.

The parks director said spray-paint vandalism was a weekly occurrence in Lawrence. Quick removal, as in the Lyons Park instance, was a priority, he said.

• 6News video: Vandals strike north Lawrence Park (07-29-05)

While DeVictor could not estimate the cost of Friday’s cleanup, he said that too often his workers took care of someone’s graffiti mess instead of working on more productive tasks.

By 3:30 p.m. Friday, children again flew in the swings in Lyons Park while the slides and other equipment were free of the black spray paint and initials “SK” and “AZ.”