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This issue of Illinois Parks & Recreation focuses partly on small town park, recreation and conservation agencies. The traditional idea about small towns is that nothing ever happens, nothing ever changes. Some people think that's one of the virtues of small towns. (Garrison Keillor has made a career out of spinning yarns about his mythical Lake Wobegon, "the town that time forgot.") Other people see small towns as places of social stagnation, where boredom often settles in as thick as the southern Illinois humidity in August. The problem with both views is that they're correct, at least partly.
I recently had a conversation with a woman who grew up on a farm in rural Iowa. Each year the last day of school was her worst. She dreaded the summers. She didn't lack the time or the wide-open spaces in which to play during June, July and August. The problem was that out on the farm she could be isolated from her friends for days at a time. "Thank goodness for the bus that took us into town to the pool," she told me. In Illinois, Harrisburg in Saline County, just a few miles north of the Shawnee National Forest, is an example of a rural park district that, at first glance, is the living embodiment of a park district that time forgot. Down in Harrisburg when people have a question about park business, they instinctively dial up Paul Emery. And why not? Paul has been on the Harrisburg Township Park District Board since 1965. He has been president for the past thirty years, and has had no opposition for the past three elections. But don't confuse longevity for lethargy. The district has produced a string of accomplishments during Emery's tenure. District holdings have grown from 40 to 70 acres, expanding from a single-site district to a district with three parks. Emery led the way toward getting grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1972 and the Illinois Department of Conservation in 1983. The district forged cooperative agreements with the school district, Southeastern Illinois College, the Saline County Fraternal Order of Police and Harrisburg Youth Athletics, a nonprofit baseball, softball and basketball organization. The partnership with Harrisburg Youth Athletics led to more than $100,000 of donations for improvements at the district's Gaskins City Recreation complex, which now houses
6 - Illinois Parks and Recreation four full-sized ball fields, a shelter, batting cages, concession stands, a mini basketball court and a tee-ball field. Of course, there is the pool. During Paul's first year on the board, the district issued $125,000 in general obligation bonds to build one of the largest outdoor pools in southern Illinois. His leadership has also brought professional management to the district. In 1974, the agency completed its first master plan and hired its first park superintendent since the district's inception in 1935. The district now employs four staff members full time, along with one part-time and 40 seasonal employees. The agency completed its second master plan in October 2003. The board envisions major park construction in the years ahead: a new swimming pool and pool house; picnic shelters; and several landscaping projects. Some collar county districts may have the wherewithal to have accomplished these projects in five or ten years. But, if you index Harrisburg's accomplishments by its EAV (just over $51,080,000), you get a sense of the progress this district has made in Paul Emery's years on the park board. This is no sleepy little district: It has a population base of 9,300. Yet, more than 3,000 people participate in the 60 plus programs Harrisburg offers. Often public servants give their best and have to hope they do good work. But, as long as numbers don't lie, Paul Emery has the satisfaction of knowing that for the past forty years his service has made a measurable, positive impact on more than 30 percent of the people of his district. True, Harrisburg's Dorris Heights' lighted baseball field is no Millennium Park. But it will be just as valuable to the future generations of Harrisburg children as that new $475 million park will be to the future children of Chicago. That's because public service and public good know no indexes or economies of scale. Whether you serve on a park district board or on a municipal board, whether you serve a large agency or a small, whether you serve a couple of terms or a couple of generations, I hope you'll take some inspiration from Paul Emery's example. From Chicago to Cairo, citizen involvement is absolutely necessary to make our communities better places to live and work. It is the foundation of the park, recreation and conservation movement, and reveals the vitality of social conscience and community responsibility. Our park, recreation, and conservation agencies are better run and are more accountable to the public because citizens serve - often without compensation - on park, recreation and conservation boards. As Paul Emery can tell you, serving on agency boards can be one of the most demanding and time-consuming of avocations; but it can also be one of the most rewarding experiences, as well. For it repays the individual, not in dollars, but in even rarer attributes - the gratitude of the community and the inner peace that comes from voluntary public service given freely for the benefit of all.
September/October 2004 - 7 |
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