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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Pope visits Phoebe Sumter Medical Center
Americus native Leonard Pope made his first visit to the new Phoebe Sumter Medical Center, which opened on December 16, 2011. The 183,000 square foot, 76-bed facility replaces the old hospital that was destroyed by an EF3 tornado on March 1, 2007.
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Lady Hurricanes win record-breaking game
The record-breaking 2011-2012 season for the Georgia Southwestern Lady Hurricanes continued Monday evening with an individual milestone being passed. Jessica Bivins would score her 1,000th point of her college career as the Lady Hurricanes won their NCAA Division II record 15th game as they downed the visiting Lady Cougars of Columbus State (12-9, 7-5 PBC) by a score of 77-65.
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Led by senior Jacorbi Denmark, the Marion County boys win in thrilling fashion
The Marion County Eagles boys basketball team was flying high at the conclusion of Tuesday night’s game against the Patriots of Greenville High School. In a game mostly dominated by the Eagles, it took a last second shot to sink the hopes of the visiting Patriots.
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Three SGTC Jets ranked in latest NJCAA national poll
South Georgia Technical College’s Khiry White, Kentavious Clowers and Phillip Flowers were all ranked individually in the latest National Junior College Athletic Association’s (NJCAA) national basketball poll this week. White and Clowers have appeared in the rankings consistently throughout January, but this was the first time that Phillip Flowers had cracked the national polls for 2012.
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Marion County Lady Eagles drop tough home game on senior night
The Marion County Lady Eagles basketball team dropped a heartbreaking game to Region 4-A foe Greenville High School on Tuesday night in Buena Vista. The Lady Eagles battled hard the entire game and either led or had a share of the lead at the end of each of the four regulation periods. Unfortunately for the Lady Eagles, the Lady Patriots of Greenville caught fire at the right time and won the contest in overtime by a score of 57-52.
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Early struggles too much to overcome for GSW men against Columbus State
The Georgia Southwestern men's basketball team shot 25 percent from the floor and trailed by as many as 12 points in the first half on Monday against Columbus State in the Storm Dome, digging a hole too deep to escape and falling to the Cougars, 64-55.
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Southland boys basketball end season on region tournament loss
The Southland Academy boys basketball team wrapped up their season with a region tournament loss to Westfield at ABAC on Tuesday night. Southland stayed in the game through the first two periods, and only trailed 17-22 at halftime. Unfortunately for the Raiders, Westfield caught fire in the second half and had extended their lead to 59-36 when the game ended.
One of the bright spots in the game for Southland was Senior guard Michael Miller. Miller scored 14 points for the Raiders while holding Westfield’s best player to only 12 points, most of which came in the fourth quarter. -
Brother-sister duo lead Schley County basketball teams to a doubleheader sweep
Basketball is a team sport that requires the entire team to play together to win, but two individual stars shone brightly on Tuesday night for the Schley County Wildcats and Lady Wildcats.
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Sumter Gymnastics bring home first places
The Sumter County Gymnastics Academy team has entered its competition season for 2012. They attended two meets in January and brought home first places awards in both.
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Lady Canes basketball wins big on the road
Three days after righting the ship with a 19-point victory over North Georgia, the Georgia Southwestern Lady Hurricanes earned their biggest conference victory since defeating Montevallo 101-57 two months earlier. Saturday's 72-47 victory over the Georgia College Bobcats (4-16, 2-9 PBC) put another notch in GSW's PBC belt.
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Pope visits Phoebe Sumter Medical Center
