City’s Parks and Recreation ‘not bridesmaids anymore’

Bloomington Parks and Recreations Department brought home the gold this year. \nThe National Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Parks and Recreation Management is an award they strive for every year. Since 1999, the department has been a finalist for the award on five different occasions.\nAn awards ceremony was held Wednesday in Indianapolis at the National Recreation and Park Administration annual convention.\nVice president of the Bloomington board of parks commissioners, John Carter, said the award presentation was comparable to the Oscars. The host asked, ‘Can I have the finalists please?’ and the anticipation and suspense built throughout the room, Carter said. \n“The timing was right for us to not be bride’s maids anymore but brides, and win the whole thing,” Carter said.\nAs soon as the announcement was made that Bloomington holds the top parks and recreation management in the nation, representatives of the department were yelling, embracing one another and jumping up and down, said Mary Catherine Carmichael, former president of the Bloomington board of parks commissioners.\nThe award is judged on criteria including technology use, environmental stewardship, service to special populations, long range planning, certifications, accreditations and unique projects, Carmichael said.\n“I think we’ve left no stone unturned as far as any requirement that they would have for a national area,” Carmichael said. “I don’t think we came up short in any area, and evidently they think the same.”\nBloomington qualifies as a class three city, which means a population between 50,000 and 100,000, she said. The department was \nrunning against three other districts, all from Illinois, she added.\nCurrent Director of the Bloomington Parks and Recreation Department Mick Renneisen said the victory brought a combination of emotions.\n“It was certainly exhilarating to find we had won,” he said, “but it was relief that we finally won it.” \nHe said he is grateful for his dedicated staff and for the high involvement the community has in the local parks system.\n“This formal acknowledgement by a national association just validates what we’ve known all along: our Parks and Recreation Department contributes outstanding programs, quality facilities and vital services that enhance our community’s character,” Mayor Mark Kruzan said in a press release.\nCommunity Relations Manager for the Parks and Recreation Department Julie Ramey was in charge of submitting the award application, which consisted of 11 essay questions to be answered on one page and a 12-minute video project. She said she ran out of space for the one-page maximum essay answers.\n“We have so many good things to tell people about and we had so much to choose from,” Ramey said.\nThe B-Line Trails and partnerships with Monroe County Community School Corporation were highlights of the application, she said.\nRenneisen attributed the success to teamwork.\n“I think it’s consistency of effort,” Renneisen said. “I think we’ve just been doing a really good job for a really long time, and I think that really pays off.”