As a student at Churchville Elementary in the 1980s, Kathy Burley waited impatiently until third grade. At the time, it was the minimum age to play on Harford County Parks & Recreation softball teams. Two years later, she joined the county's first-ever girls' soccer team. Decades of softball, soccer, tennis and lacrosse games followed.
"It's all a collective memory," she says now in the office where she serves as the new director of Harford County Parks & Recreation. "I have always felt at home on a playing field."
She grins when recalling her days as the only girl at soccer camp at Havre de Grace Middle School: "The guys didn't want me on their team, but only because they couldn't play 'shirts or skins.'"
Decades later, Burley talks to us about what she calls her "dream job" overseeing 80 parks and their programs.
You mentioned you are still getting oriented. Any surprises so far?
We had 19,105 people last year who volunteered 586,800 hours. It's a jaw-dropping number.
Who are they?
They are recreation council members, concession stand workers, coaches, youth center chaperones, Ma & Pa Trail monitors, foremen in the woodshop, Eden Mill naturalists, tour guides and art gallery docents at Liriodendron, and so many more.
We have a lot of one-day events like the annual wade-in at Anita C. Leight Estuary Center. Sometimes community groups will ask to do a clean-up day in one of our parks. At Camp I Can [a therapeutic recreation camp] there is a faux farm fair and volunteers bring in farm animals.
Some people donate an hour to line a playing field. Other volunteers live and breathe their Parks & Recreation duties. I don't even want to think about what Parks & Recreation would look like without them.
What's ahead for outdoor public places in Harford?
I want to get more people into the parks and facilities. Small tweaks will make facilities friendlier. At the multi-purpose centers in Havre de Grace, Bel Air and Fallston, everyone wants to play pickle ball. It's off the charts, and we sometimes don't have the space to accommodate the demand. We can look at simple things like adding lines to the tennis courts so that players can use those courts as well.
We've added walking trails to many of the parks that contain ball fields. Families can walk the trails and still see the action on the fields.
We are looking at partnerships with other agencies so that we reach more people. We expect to work with the Department of Community Services to help combat the heroin epidemic. Some people who become addicted to opiates started with sports injuries. If we can intercede and educate at that point, perhaps we can help people avoid lifelong battles with drug dependency.
Name a few parks that might be under the radar for locals.
One is Schucks Regional Park. It's a beautiful rural place with walking trails and a gazebo, but you can't see it from the road. It's one of our parks where families who don't have access to neighborhood green space can teach a child to ride a bike, watch the birds or just relax in the grass.
I wish we had more people who used the Parks & Recreation woodshop. There are professional-level tools and machines, classes and a foreman on duty. It's just $100 for the year.
We have disc golf at Scarboro Hills Disc Golf Course and at Churchville Recreation Complex. The climbing wall at Edgeley Grove Farm is open on Friday nights for teens.
What else would you like people to know about you?
I have three boys ages 20, 18 and 12. For several years, all three were in Harford County recreation teams at the same time. I have my dream job, and my husband, Chris, has his own dream job as an environmental teacher at Harford Glen.