Terry Thomas knew two things when he considered a career: He didn’t want to wear a tie, and he wanted to do something outdoors.
He’ll celebrate his 20th work anniversary this week at the Russellville Recreation and Parks Department, and in April, he was named director.
“I was hoping that would happen,” Thomas said of the director’s job. “I’ve never left since I went to college here, and my girl goes to college here. We didn’t want to move.”
Thomas, 47, was hired to replace longtime parks director Mack Hollis, whose 38-year tenure included 35 as director.
Thomas, who was the department’s first athletic director, said he learned a lot from Hollis through the years.
“I learned that this is a harder job than most people think it is,” Thomas said. “We deal with so many people, from your gardeners, all the way to your baseball associations and soccer associations and boating clubs. We have the lakes, the mountains and the trails here; we have it all. You’ve got people pulling from every direction wanting something. You’ve got to do what you can when you can for them within the budget restrictions. We try to work with everybody we can.”
Mayor Randy Horton said Thomas’ ability to work with different groups is exactly why he is perfect for the position.
“The No. 1 thing would be his 20 years of experience; that’s the main thing. He’s lived it seven days a week for 20 years,” Horton said. “It’s the personal relationships that are the most important part of his experience.”
Thomas said the department, which has a budget of $1.2 million, oversees 23 parks that encompass almost 800 acres. The department also manages the soon-to-be 1-year-old aquatics center, as well as the M.J. Hickey Pool, a small splash pad in City Park and the Hughes Community Center, which keeps him hopping with events.
He had been at the 30-year-old city pool for hours one recent Friday, getting it ready to open Memorial Day.
“It was looking a lot better when I was out there,” he said.
Thomas, who grew up in Ashdown, said he saw his bank-president father go to work every day “for years and years” in a suit and tie. Although he admired his father, Thomas didn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps. Thomas loved the outdoors, and he knew he couldn’t be cooped up inside.
“I can’t wear a tie; I don’t wear ties,” he said.
He first went to Texarkana Community College, then transferred to Arkansas Tech University in Russellville. When he was going to college, he worked for Walmart, and management wanted him to stay, he said. It just wasn’t what the outdoorsy guy envisioned for himself.
Thomas earned a degree in parks and recreation from Arkansas Tech, and his first job was as athletic director at the River Valley Boys & Girls Club (now the L.V. Williamson Boys & Girls Club), where he worked for two years.
“It was different than this job because you’re dealing with kids; here, I’m dealing with everybody,” he said. “It was fun. I did all their athletics and got to work in the game room and do summer projects when sports weren’t going on. I still see all those kids; they’re all grown up. I get to see them grown up and having kids.”
He left the Boys & Girls Club two years later, in May 1998, when he was hired as the first athletic director for the Russellville Recreation and Parks Department.
“As athletic director, I did a little bit of everything; I’d help Mack do stuff, too. Sports are not going all the time,” Thomas said.
A new softball complex, Pleasant View Park, was under construction when he started; just the light poles had been installed.
“I basically got to see it from the ground up,” he said. The four-field complex opened in 1999.
“I was over the softball side; I’d work a little with soccer and baseball,” he said.
“Mainly, I was over bringing [softball] tournaments to town and accommodating them and coordinating with all the groups here in town: Boys & Girl Club, Industrial League, church league, and our city has an open league,” Thomas said.
“My main goal was just to get people in town and keep the complex busy and packed every weekend,” he said.
The biggest tournament he oversaw was a kids fast-pitch softball tournament a couple of years ago that brought in almost 90 teams.
When the fields first opened, Thomas said, 30 to 40 adult softball teams were playing in tournaments every weekend.
“I started a turf program to get the athletic fields in good shape, grasswise,” he said.
The past couple of years, I’ve been working out at the Hickey Park, the baseball park, trying to get that going. We’ve got a good group of dads who have continued that on,” he said of the maintenance. “The city is trying to help [the soccer and baseball associations] out now.”
Thomas was athletic director for 16 years before being named assistant director.
He oversees 14 employees — nine maintenance employees, two full-time office staff and three full-time employees of the aquatic center, which opened a year ago on June 29, then several part-time employees at Hickey Pool and the aquatic center.
“That’s a job right there, the aquatic center,” Thomas said. “It was pretty nice to get that open. We’re nearly one year in. We’re still working out kinks and learning it. We’ve never had anything like it, so it’s just a different beast out there.”
He said the aerobics classes for seniors are overflowing.
Thomas said one of his goals is to get the high school swim meet at the aquatic center for 2019, which he has confidence will happen.
Another of Thomas’ goals is to update the parks master plan from 2003.
“We’ve never really had a trails master plan; we’ve had a map,” he said. “We’re going to continue our trails that we’ve already started. Some are dead-end trails. We’re just trying to connect them together.
“We want to see what people want in our community and incorporate that into our master plan of our parks. That’ll give us a guideline of how we want to grow over the next five years.”
Thomas said he will have the proposal on June’s Russellville City Council agenda, and bids will be solicited for a company to conduct public hearings, meet with civic groups and come up with the master plan.
Updating parks equipment is on his agenda, too.
“Some of them are 30 to 40 years old and still have old equipment. We’d like to update that equipment and bring some new equipment in that we don’t have, something unusual that we don’t have,” he said.
His dream is to create a bicycle park.
“We’ve got a request in to the City Council to get a conceptual drawing of a bicycle park and a pump track and an all-inclusive playground, all at the same park,” Thomas said.
A pump track is a competition-style bicycle track, and he said Northwest Arkansas has several. Russellville’s would be concrete and include ramps, bridges, tunnels and other obstacles.
“Little kids all the way to an adult can use any of this,” he said.
Thomas said the City Council hasn’t voted on the project, but one location he has in mind for the park is Vick Field, across from the Hughes Community Center.
“That may not be where it goes at the end,” he said. “We’re hoping to buy 40 acres by Pleasant View, so it could end up going in out there.”
He said the parks department is researching grants for the project and could use proceeds from the 1-cent sales tax that goes toward parks.
The city’s newest park is Veterans Memorial Park, which was moved from the middle of town to the end of the Bona Dea Trail system on the north side of town. The third and final phase is underway: A pavilion is under construction, memorial plaques purchased by the public are being installed in the sidewalk, and memorial trees are being planted.
The Recreation and Parks Department also sponsors a children’s fishing derby and the annual Russellville Christmas Parade. Thomas said the credit goes to Kelli Nealy, his administrative assistant, for being the main point person for the parade.
“That’s probably our biggest event. It’s one of the biggest Christmas parades in Arkansas. It has about 115 entries in it; it’s 2 miles long, nearly. We took it over six or seven years ago. … It’s always been good,” he said.
His days are full, but Thomas said he’s not sure if an assistant director will be hired to replace him.
“We’ve talked about combining the assistant director and maintenance foreman into one job. I don’t know if that’s going to work.”
Thomas said he’s in the perfect role, though.
“I couldn’t see myself doing anything other than what I’m doing now,” he said. “I want something where I can move around and get outdoors.”
Someday he’ll retire, he said.
“I’ll find something to do when I retire. I like to hunt and be in the outdoors; I deer hunt a lot,” Thomas said. “Hopefully, I’ll have some land somewhere and move out on it.”
That will fulfill his two requirements — outdoors, no tie.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.