Calculate your leisure time. You’ll be surprised just how much time you devote to those things you want to do, or by default, the things you just do which are not planned. Most working Americans with full time jobs have one third of a 24 hour-day to do as they wish. (Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, and eight hours for leisure). If you add two 16 hour days, Saturday and Sunday, as leisure time, that’s 72 hours each week (3 full days) that you have available to do the things you choose.
These are vital hours to your personal development; these hours may determine the quality of your life. They may well determine the happiness and well-being of your entire immediate family. These hours should have planning and quality built into them. A professional recreation program and a community education program are the two most likely places to find both planning and quality for you and your family.
“It is a long-time pleasure of mankind to build castles in the sand.” An anonymous author used this expression to describe the simple fact that we all find something to do with our time. “Everybody has to have SOMETHING to do” is another way to express the same idea.
That’s where public recreation, outdoor education, and community education become important parts of our lives. We have many choices, we can sit in front of the TV and eat, or we can walk, hunt, golf, do crafts, and many things that enhance our lives culturally, physically, and emotionally.
Marion citizens felt the need for an organized program for young people as early as 1944, when a volunteer group formed a council to provide youth activities and inherited a treasury of $144 from a now unknown group of individuals. This unofficial group of volunteers called themselves the City Recreation Council, and they numbered nine future-thinking civic leaders: Maree Cox, Mrs. Ernest Parks, Mrs. Clara Boatright, Frank Morrison, Floyd McMichael, Oscar Schafale, August Fowler, Fred Stotlar, and Rev. Harvey Zuern.
Wilbern Boatright, a Marion teacher in the school system conducted the program and provided supervision on a volunteer basis. Boatright went on to become principal of Jefferson School, the Marion Junior High School, and ended his professional education career as Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education of Marion Community Unit Number Two.
Boatright was a mentor for two succeeding recreation directors, Ray Hancock and Wes Deaton, and he was a contemporary of another director, A. C. “Cliff Storme. Boatright’s impact on the quality of life of the entire Marion area has been obscured by time and insufficient preservation of Marion history.
At the end of three years of programming by the volunteer City Recreation Council, the group ran out of money and ceased operations in 1946 because they had no money and no facilities. The Marion Lions Club then financed and operated the program for a year or two, possibly into 1948, and Wilbern Boatright continued to volunteer his time and skill to lead the program.
After these ground-breaking efforts by the City Recreation Council and the Lions Club, people came to realize the advantages and opportunities offered by a city recreation program, and they submitted a question to the voters on April 15, 1947, to create a recreation department as a part of city government.
The measure passed. A tax of .05 cents per $100 of assessed valuation was approved to operate the department, and the City of Marion advanced the new department $5,608 to get started immediately.
Based on a current assessed valuation for Marion of $255 million with an approved tax rate of .05 per $100 of assessed valuation, the Recreation Department should receive about $127,500.00 per year in operating funds with regular increases/decreases as the assessed valuation might fluctuate.
Marion city government, though, chooses to fund the Recreation Department out of the general fund; presumably not levying the approved recreation tax. From year-to-year the Recreation Department must gain City approval to obtain funds for the next year’s operation.
A full-time director of recreation was employed. Mr. James Smith. Smith remained director of the department and supervised a baseball program, a teen town, and a summer playground program for children until when he resigned to take a coaching position near Springfield. Little is known of James Smith both before and after his tenure in Marion, but his and Boatright s legacies were important because they established the practice of employing a local educator to lead the program, a practice that is still followed and has been very successful tor the past 60 years.
After money was obtained for operations and programming, the City of Marion allowed the new department to utilize a portion of City Hall for a teen center and an office facility. The teen center was located in the north annex to the City Hall where the police department was later located, and the “Teen Town” was also located on the top floor of City Hall for a short while.
As we find throughout history, key individuals keep appearing in the Marion recreation history. Clara Boatright, Maree Cox, and Rev. Harvey Zuren remained active as members of the Marion Recreation Board. Orland Stanley, later to become superintendent of Marion schools, and Kenneth Absher were also charter members of that five-person board.
A. C. “Cliff” Storme, a high school teacher and coach, was named part-time director of recreation in 1949 when Smith left for Springfield, and Storme held the position until 1963 when he was named Principal of Marion High School. Storme brought history, vision, and substantial growth to the department during his 14-year tenure.
Baseball, playground activities, and teen center programs continued and grew in number dramatically as Storme was able to work with the school district and the city parks to find more facilities and resources for more programs.
Storme was instrumental in forming the Marion Youth Baseball and Softball League and the Marion Park District. While there was some public tax money to operate programs, and while some facilities were available at the one city park and in the schools, these facilities and funds were woefully inadequate to provide a comprehensive recreation program that would serve all of Marion’s youth.
The Marion Park District, an independent entity of local government with elected commissioners, was formed by referendum in 1950, and that made it possible to build a swimming pool, new parks, new athletic fields, and better playground facilities.
Between the schools and the Park District, facilities were no longer a forbidding problem for recreational activities. Storme, attorney J. C Mitchell, and school district chief financial officer Bill Armstrong were instrumental in the formation of the Park District, using the plan of transporting Marion youth to out-of-town swimming pools in Johnston City and West Frankfort as a means of persuading Marion voters to approve the Park District ballot question.
The newly formed Marion Youth Baseball League in 1953 started developing a capstone program for the ongoing City League of the Marion Recreation Department by creating a Little League and later a Babe Ruth League to take those boys who wanted to continue playing baseball. That program grew from just a few boys in the late 40’s and early 50’s to over 800 boys and girls by the mid-1960’s when a girl’s softball program was added to the activities. These programs were affiliated with Pony Baseball, Inc. in the late 1950’s.
The Teen Town had long ago outgrown its facilities uptown and its welcome in crowded facilities at City Hall so Storme and other civic leaders created Marion Youth, Inc., a volunteer group of individuals whose main initial purpose was to raise money and volunteers to build a now Marion Youth Center, a building that would house the Marion Recreation Department and many of its activities along with the teen center. Moreover, such a facility would serve the entire Marion community for public activities and other events.
This group, formed about 1961 or 1962, started construction of the new Marion Youth Center in 1962 with donated labor and materials; raised money in a variety of ways, including the annual Valentine Queen Contest and Coronation, for materials and labor that wasn’t donated; and opened the new facility in the spring of 1963, just as “Cliff” Storme was leaving the leadership of the department to become Principal of Marion High School.
Storme credits Dr. Martin May and Winifred (Bainbridge) Hudgens as instrumental volunteers in the creation of Marion Youth, Inc. and the resulting Marion Youth Center facility. Storme and Hancock credit J. C. Mitchell, Bill Armstrong, Reverend Everett Lynch, Leah (Wilson) Keller, Bill Hudgens, Warder Stotlar, Dr. Jim Felts, and Dr. Martin May as were key volunteer leaders who made a significant difference in the Marion Recreation and Park District programs.
In July of 1963 Ray Hancock, a one year veteran English and social studies teacher at Marion High School, was named Marion Recreation Director. Hancock had started working with the Marion Daily Republican as a sport’s reporter and with the Marion Youth Baseball League as a scorekeeper while he was a student at Southern Illinois University after his discharge from the Navy in 1958.
Hancock was familiar with the programs and activities of the Department because of his relationship with Storme as a former student, friend, colleague, and volunteer in the baseball program. The programs continued to grow and prosper and Hancock expanded existing programs, such as baseball, tennis, basketball, teen activities, and swimming, to name a few. Golf, adult softball through churches and businesses, a new softball facility at Pyramid Park, open gymnasium activities, and other programs were added to the schedule.
The Marion Youth Center during the late 50s, the 60 s and early 70s became the focal point for teenagers with live bands every weekend, a Teenage Recreation Board, and numerous special teen and pre-teen programs.
The Marion Youth Center also served as the Senior Citizen Center for several years because the pool tables, concession areas, table tennis, and large activity and meeting areas served both ends of the age spectrum equally effectively.
Eventually, the Senior Citizens obtained their own facility and equipment and were able to have longer hours and more specialized programming. The Marion Recreation Department, according to Hancock, was pleased to be able give an outstanding senior program the opportunity to get a positive start in Marion.
Hancock and Storme were able to expand the use of community facilities considerably in their respective positions. As Principal and later Superintendent of Marion Community Unit Two, Storme was able to release school facilities in the evenings to the Marion Recreation Department for night programs for all Marion citizens. At one point, Hancock had contractual control of one facility, the old Logan gymnasium, for night activities. Other school facilities were available for craft, educational, and physical programs.
Hancock resigned from the leadership of the Recreation Department in the summer of 1974 to accept the position of Associate Dean for Baccalaureate Education at John A. Logan College, and Wes Deaton, a vocational teacher and supervisor at Marion High School was named to head the department, continuing the tradition of School, Park District, and Recreation Department cooperation.
Under Deaton’s 33-year span of leadership, the longest in the history to date, the Department has grown to include one of the largest soccer programs in the area (now incorporated and run as a separate entity), a large and successful extension of the baseball and softball programs, the creation and implementation of Swamp Fox Track and Field, and an outstanding youth basketball program. The Marion youth football program, long sought after in the Marion area was another program initiated by Deaton with active citizen participation.
Deaton’s greatest legacy may be his ability to involve citizen activists to the point that they take total control of the programs— finance, supervise, and eventually incorporate the programs, such as the soccer and baseball-softball programs.
Jill Deaton feels that her father Wes’s greatest contributions include “… his longevity, reliability, personal involvement with all programs, and creativity.” Deaton was an advocate for Marion youth, and his legacy is the quality of life his programs provide daily.
When Wes Deaton suddenly, tragically passed away in January 2007, Dennis Blankenship was tapped by the Recreation Board to assume the leadership of the Department. Blankenship was a retired teacher/librarian from the Marion School District, following the time-tested formula for school, city, and park district cooperation to produce the leading public recreation program in the Southern Illinois area.
Blankenship devoted his efforts and vision to maintaining the existing high quality programs and the rebuilding of programs and activities at the Marion Youth Center, both in terms of remodeling the facility and implementing a new concept of programming the Center for youth activities. Current ongoing programs will continue to serve the public.
Blankenship indicated that involvement of both junior and senior high school students at the Youth Center was a priority. He also wanted to involve parents and citizens, and plans were underway to expand the building on the east side with new handicap capable rest rooms and storage space.
The Marion Recreation Directors have been James Smith 1947-1949, A. C. “Cliff” Storme 1950-1963, Ray Hancock 1963-1974, Wes Deaton 1974-2007, Dennis Blankenship 2007.
The current Marion Recreation Board in 2007, appointed by the Mayor and Council, was made up of Jim Powless (President), Kenny Strobel, Sherry Austin, Donna Humphrey, and George Sims. Other notable board members over the years (not previously named), are Marilyn Cavaness, Rev. Everett Lynch, Rex Presson, Robert Wallace, Leroy Anderson, James Garrison, Joe Gulley, Fran Stewart, and Ray McCormick.
Community recreation and education, the Community School, has been a reality in Marion like nowhere else in Southern Illinois or, actually, most places in the United States.
The Marion Recreation Department basically has had one facility, the Marion Youth Center, through its history. The Recreation Department specializes in programs for people.
The Marion Park District has had no programs except the recreation swimming at the Marion pool. The Park District specializes in facilities and has done a good job through the years.
The Marion School District has the programs and the facilities, and they are essential to a true community-school concept for education and recreation. The Community School concept, as developed by the Mott Foundation, is a valuable asset to any community where it is practiced, and Marion has been a leader for much of the past 60 years by virtue of solid, professional cooperation between the Marion Park District, the Marion Recreation Department, and the Marion School District. Many recreation programs feed talented students and athletes into the school system where they can hone and tune and enculturate their skills and talents into the workplace…better yet, into their daily lives.
The Community Education (continuing education) Department under the leadership of Dean Phil Minnis and Associate Dean Barry Hancock at John A. Logan College epitomizes the community education concept on a regional level, and, remarkably, works with all local community education programs throughout Southern Illinois.
The concept of community education and recreation is growing and expanding, and much of it has happened because of the Marion Recreation Department and its leadership. It has always been the responsibility of the Marion Recreation Department to provide the professional leadership and the coordination between the key agencies- schools, parks, volunteers, and city— that make a quality program possible.
Business, industry, professionals, workers-indeed, all people who are thinking of major relocations in life, look to the total quality of life in a community before they make a commitment to re-establish themselves, their families, and their livelihoods in a new community.
By promoting a “Better Life Through Better Leisure Skills,” The Marion Recreation Department has helped create an outstanding Marion community that is an attraction locally, regionally, and nationally.
(Article written by Ray Hancock, published in Marion Living Magazine, February 2008)