What is parks and recreation? It’s children playing a baseball game.
It’s a senior citizen learning to ballroom dance. It’s a casual stroll to enjoy nature or to exercise the body.
It’s a young mother with her child in a swimming class. It’s a community center that offers the family a hub of activity. This list could be exhaustive and still not cover all that the field of parks and recreation has to offer.
Parks provide space to play and learn, space to create and imagine and space to be safe and secure. The work of parks and recreation professionals plays a key role in creating communities.
The Americus-Sumter County Parks and Recreation Department is working hard to provide many of these things to the citizens. The late spring and summer are the busiest times of year. The youth baseball league is coming to a close, the adults’ softball program is about to get started, summer employment applications are being evaluated and registration for day camp and swimming lessons are ongoing through late May.
While all of this is happening, major renovation projects are occurring as well. The Rucker Street Pool Building has been gutted, re-roofed, new drains installed, new partitions built in the dressing rooms, ceramic tile installed, and a clean new exterior and paint is being added in the coming days.
This is the first of many changes that will happen in the Boone Park area. Citizens are excited about the new community center which will be located in the former Gertrude Davenport Building on the corner of U.S. Highway 19 North and Rucker Street.
It will feature a state of the art gymnastics facility, two basketball gyms, a splash pad, indoor walking track and a professional office complex. To go along with the building renovations, Boone Park will receive a facelift as well.
The walking track will be expanded and resurfaced. Old storage and bathroom buildings will be torn down and additional picnic shelters erected in their place.
There will be additional playground equipment added and much more to make Boone Park one of the most well-rounded facilities in the region. In Leslie, a new picnic pavilion and sign have been added to the Tinley Anderson swimming pool, adjacent to the Leslie Civic Center.
Barnum Pond has been restocked with fish and closed to public fishing for over a year. On Memorial Day weekend, this facility will re-open to senior citizens and their guests to enjoy a clean area to fish.
The Regional Park nature trail is open to the public and provides a 1.9 mile area to walk or ride BMX style bicycles. Five public swimming pools will open on June 2 to allow citizens in Americus, Leslie and Plains to cool off on hot summer days.
To find out more about what is happening at the ASCPRA, call (229) 924–4878 or visit www.ascpra.org.
Local Sports
Parks and recreation has a lot to offer communities
May 4, 2008
- Local Sports
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Eagles land two on All-Region Team, have four honorable mention
Two members of the Marion County baseball team were named to the 2012 All-Region Second Team for Region 4-A recently and four other players received honorable mention. The group of Eagle standouts was lead by Dylan McClellan and Jake McTaggert, who each represent Marion County on the Second Team.
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Southland star signs with GSW
Alex Lindsey will be continuing her softball career at the college level, and she will not have to move very far to accomplish that feat. Lindsey, the superstar pitcher for the Southland Academy Lady Raiders softball team, signed with the Georgia Southwestern State University Hurricanes on Tuesday.
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Wildcats’ baseball season comes to an end
Last Tuesday the Schley County Wildcats traveled to Charlton County to take on the Indians in the Class A state quarterfinals. The two teams were the final two public schools left in the Class A playoffs.
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McKenzie selected to take part in Future Stars Game
Staley Middle School eighth grade quarterback Emory McKenzie is no stranger to success. Even McKenzie said he was taken aback, however, when he learned that he was chosen to represent his state in the Future Stars Game on June 16th.
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Blue team holds off late charge from Gold team in Americus-Sumter’s 2012 spring football game
In the first Americus-Sumter football action of the 2012 year, the Blue team survived a late charge by the Gold team to earn the victory in the Panthers’ 2012 Spring game. After taking an early 13-0 lead, the Blue team had to sack Gold team quarterback Jonathon Thomas late in the fourth quarter to preserve a 13-6 win and earn bragging rights until next spring.
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Former GSW and SGTC coach Dawson named head coach at Central Georgia Technical College
Another former Georgia Southwestern assistant basketball coach will be the head coach of another program next fall. Reco Dawson, who was an assistant coach on Mike Leeder’s staff at GSW during the 2011-2012 basketball season, recently accepted the head coaching position at Central Georgia Technical College in Macon, Georgia.
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GSW's Griffin secures top 10 finish at Nationals
He started the tournament with a birdie. He ended the tournament with a birdie. In between, Georgia Southwestern golfer J.P. Griffin continued to play some terrific golf at the three-round, three-day NCAA Division II National Championships. Griffin finished at 4-under par and tied for ninth place in the 108-player field.
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GSW club fishing team to compete in National Tournament
Georgia Southwestern has a long history of being successful in athletics. From boasting the 2002 NAIA Player of the Year in baseball player Paul Bush, to winning the school’s first Division Championship in the NCAA-era with a Western Division Championship in the 2011 basketball season.
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Americus-Sumter dominates All-Region soccer team
The Region 1-AAA All-Region team was recently announced, and the Americus-Sumter Panthers won numerous awards from the head man all the way down to a freshman. After having an amazing year in which the Panthers finished with a 12-5 record and won the school’s first ever Region Championship in soccer, the Americus-Sumter soccer teams and head coach were recognized for all of their hard work with numerous post season awards.
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Panthers spring football game set for Friday
Local football fans that are foaming at the mouth waiting for August to roll around can get a taste for the upcoming season this Friday night as the Americus-Sumter Panthers will be hosting their annual Blue-Gold spring game. The Panthers, who finished as the Region 1-AAA runner up in 2010 and 2011, will see how their team has progressed through their spring practices and evaluate their positions for the upcoming 2012 season.
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