Playing to win: Ardmore Parks and Recreation receives four awards at state conference
The team from Ardmore Parks and Recreation came home the big winners of the night after the Oklahoma Recreation and Parks Society (ORPS) banquet last week. ORPS is a statewide organization dedicated to the advancement and promotion of parks within the state of Oklahoma, and the winners of the night were selected by a committee of parks and recreation professionals who work in departments across the state.
This year the awards committee selected Ardmore for four awards: exceptional quality for overall marketing, exceptional quality for programming or special events for Crochet Crazy, exceptional quality in facilities or projects for the Ardmore Regional Park Pickleball Complex, and the Gold Medal Award.
The ORPS Gold Medal Award is the highest honor given to any city's parks department, and it goes to only one municipality per year. Communities big and small are all in the running with one another, and it is based upon demonstrating excellence in long-term planning, resource management, innovative approaches to delivering services, and fiscally sound business practices.
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Ardmore Parks and Recreation Director Teresa Ervin said winning would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of her crew.
"They take a lot of pride in what they do, and they really do it well," she said.
The awards banquet came at the end of the annual ORPS conference, and during the conference Ardmore came away with another major win during an event called the maintenance derby. The derby challenges grounds crews from across the state to compete with one another in a series of seven competitions. The challenges included plant and tree identification, successfully assembling an irrigation system, a backpack blower obstacle course, a zero turn mower obstacle course, a nail hammering contest, a backhoe contest, and a truck and trailer contest.
"It may sound like a bit of silly fun — and it is really fun to watch — but those courses are tough," Ervin said. "In the backpack blower contest, you have to use your blower to move a ball around through a timed obstacle course. With the backhoe contest, you have to use the backhoe to pick up a kettlebell that's painted a certain color then drop the kettlebell into a circle with the matching color. Our crew did a great job on all of them, and it really shows off their skills."
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She said she was honored to be recognized for so many awards.
"It's very humbling," Ervin said. "Our mission is to serve our community, but it's really nice to be recognized by or peers. They work in the field day in and day out, so they really know the issues that we deal with. It's a very nice feeling for a city of our size to compete against the largest municipalities in the state, and come out on top."
This article originally appeared on The Daily Ardmoreite: Ardmore Parks and Recreation wins four awards from ORPS
