SPECIAL FOCUS

It's in the Blood

Generations of and board members share their love for
the of natural resources

BY ANN M. LONDRIGAN

Lee Careys physical presence remains a powerful force at age 82.

Although admittedly small, Careys 5-foot-7-inch, 165-pound frame is trim and strong. His vision is now clouded by glaucoma, but his rich brown eyes remain wide and penetrating.

He walks slowly yet confidently with a black cane, a gift handcrafted in Zimbabwe. Carey calls it his "fighting stick," and it's the only telltale from a debilitating accident that occurred during military service in World War II, in which he suffered a dislocated hip, fractured skull, punctured eardrum and a concussion.

Standing near him you can envision the young man who, as a teenager, wanted to be like another teen from the '30s, boxer Joe Louis. The only child of a hard-working and prosperous coal-mining family in tiny Providence, Kentucky, Carey was trained to be obedient and tough by his mother, who ran a restaurant as a side business.

Lee Corey (right) and his son
Stephen (left) are both proud of
their careers in the parks and recreation field.


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"I got beat up again," says Carey, remembering one of many childhood scuffles.

"I come home crying and my mother says if I don't fight back, she'll get me good. I said, 'But what if he's bigger than me,' and she said 'You fight. You may lose, but you fight.'"

That fighting spirit—and a realization that size matters for success in professional boxing—ultimately led Carey to shed his Golden Gloves dreams and chose a more certain path to success through the field of recreation.

In 1936, he was one of 100 African Americans among 11,000 students to attend the University of Illinois in Champaign. He was the only black student in the recreation program.

"I couldn't play baseball, basketball, couldn't be on the wrestling team," says Carey, describing the decade before baseball legend Jackie Robinson "broke the color barrier" in the major leagues.

"I'm not bitter about it. That was they way it was."

Thirteen years later, after the war, after the accident, Carey returned to Champaign for graduate school, urged by peer Alien V. Sapora to get a masters degree in recreation.

After graduation in 1953, he was hired to manage playgrounds for the Springfield (Ill.) Playground and Parks Commission. In 1955 he became the first black superintendent of recreation, earning $ 11,700 a year, and there he stayed until retirement 21 years later.

September / October 1997 / 19


SPECIAL FOCUS

"A lot of people, you know, they hate to go to work because it's drudgery. I was one of the lucky ones. I was doing what I wanted to do, and I got paid for it."

— Lee Carey

Like the obedience shown to his parents, kids in Springfield's recreation programs obeyed "Mr. C." They learned to trust and respect him and sometimes fear him.

"I totally raised the kids," says Carey, who is most proud of teaching youths discipline and etiquette.

"We had all kinds of baseball leagues, basketball leagues, gymnastics, swimming. We did everything.

"Parents knew where their kids were....Kids were so tired when they got home they went to bed [instead of getting into trouble]."

Carey says he found a rewarding job in recreation.

"A lot of people, you know, they hate to go to work because it's drudgery. I was one of the lucky ones. I was doing what I wanted to do, and I got paid for it."

He passed along this passion for recreation and public service to his three children: Stephen, Carolyn (Blackwell), and Arthur Allen.

Lee and wife Velma Carey's oldest son, Stephen, age 48, is the site superintendent of Sangchris Lake State Park in Rochester, Ill.

"I didn't push him," says Lee Carey about Stephens similar career interests.

"I just tried to help him. I never believe in pushing anybody."

They're like father, like son in many ways.

Both graduated from the University of Illinois with degrees in the leisure studies field. Both pledged Alpha Phi Alpha, the first U.S. intercollegiate Greek letter fraternity for African American men.

And both believe in leadership by example.

"I'm not as hard as he was or is," says Stephen, comparing their management styles.

Stephen oversees 7 full-time staff at Sangchris, which won the Illinois Department of Natural Resources' (IDNR) award for the most outstanding facility in 1997.

"[My father is] in recreation. I'm kind of a step removed, because I am in outdoors. I had to prove myself to my peers, because there really wasn't any other blacks around."

Stephen interned with the Department of Conservation (now IDNR) in 1975. From there he was involved with the Illinois Conservation Corps at Pere Marquette State Park and later became its director. When hired in 1978 as site superintendent for Sangchris, he was one of three African Americans in the state to hold such a position.

"I believe that if you are willing to do anything— like we do in park maintenance life—if you step in and just show yourself that you're no better than they are, [your co-workers] give you a lot of respect."e

His father agrees: "And they'll work harder."

In the late-'60s, as a teenager at Feitshans High School—where he was named All City in basketball and baseball—Stephen decided to pursue a career in recreation. He says the choice was natural because

recreation was all he knew.

He envisioned becoming a troubleshooter or "hot shot," setting up recreation programs in urban communities as a way to address the racial unrest of the period. However, jobs in the inner-city were scarce, so he set out on the state park track.

"I enjoy people," says Stephen.

"You have to be a people person to work with as many people as you do [in the field]."

Explains his father: "[Stephen has] been around all kinds of people all of the time, 'cause, like I said, I had 16 playgrounds. I had a trampoline hooked on the back of my car and I took it [and my children] playground to playground."

What's different about their career experiences?

"The major difference I see is there is a severe lack of opportunity for young kids growing up to enjoy recreation," says Stephen.

"They've closed the schools down. It seemed to me that schools used to be a big force in recreation by providing their facilities for the kids to use. Now it's just the opposite.

"I think they're doing a disservice. Somebody's missed the boat and it doesn't seem like anybody wants to right it."

Lee Carey adds: "When I retired, [the Springfield Recreation Commission] had nobody that knew how to program....They hired math majors and science majors, instead of getting recreation majors. So when I retired in 1976, there was nobody left to open up the playgrounds."

According to Stephen, the Department of Natural Resources is expanding its environmental outreach programs for minorities and all youth. Many elementary and high schools participate in annual environmental workshops at the state parks and programs such as "Kids for Conservation."

He believes that children are "getting away from" natural resources.

"If you don't get them young, you're not going to get them at all," says Stephen.

Many children from Lee Carey's recreation programs told him that they wanted to be just like him when they grew up. They respected his character and reputation, his job and family life.

Stephen says: "Mostly in the future, I think I don't want to be considered a role model, but at least I want people to be able to look at a minority and say 'This is something that is not in the normal walk of life and something that I could do.'"

ANN M. LONDRIGAN
is the editor of Illinois Parks & Recreation magazine and the publications director for the Illinois Association of Park. Districts. She is also a free-lance feature writer for The State lournal-Register.

20 / Illinois Parks and Recreation


IT'S IN THE BLOOD

Second-Generation Commissioners Are Common

Three of the Illinois Association of Park Districts (IAPD) 19 board members are second-generation commissioners. Two have fathers who were active in IAPD during the '40s, '50s and '60s; one was an IAPD president in 1962.

It's not surprising that serving on a local park board is something that runs "in the blood."

Board members are locally elected citizens. They care about their communities. They share time and talents with an organization that improves the quality of life of their communities.

Volunteerism for parks and recreation is catchy.

At age 23—a self-described "young whippersnapper"—IAPD board member Dennis Flanagin, of Lan-Oak Park

District, Lansing, ILL., saw what his father was doing and wanted to do it, too. So he ran for the seat resigned by his father, Gerald
"Duke" Flanagin, in 1971.



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Dennis lost by 96 votes and waited a full six-year term before trying—successfully— for the same seat again.

"My dad was very active in the community, so that got passed on to all of us," says Dennis, age 50 and the oldest of four brothers.

"The family business was excavating and trucking, so the park district never had to buy any black dirt, never had to buy any sand, never had to buy any stone, never had to pay for any grating, all the years my dad was on the board," says Flanagin, who heads the residential lending department of the U.S. Bank in Lansing. He and wife Barbara also have four children.

"That was the kind of community spirit that passed through the family. I mean it just was there.... If the fire department needed things done, we'd help the fire department."

Gerald Flanagin, 70, served for 12 years on the Lan-Oak park board and accomplished much for the community. Flanagin Park at 188th and Sherman Street is named after him.

Together, Gerald and Dennis have served the district for 32 of its 48-year history.

IAPD president Fred Hohnke, an 8- year commissioner for the Woodridge Park District and vice president of Church Rickards, Whitlock & Co., remembers campaigning door-to-door as a youngster growing up in Bellwood, ILL.



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"Other commissioners would come over and discuss things," says Hohnke.

"There was always a lot of conversation about the park district in the house."

His father, Fred C. Hohnke I, served two terms for the Memorial Park District in Bellwood in the late-'40s and early-'50s.

"And of course we would go to the swimming pool, which was a big thing," says Hohnke.

"This was before we had the recreation. Most of it was just maintaining and building facilities, providing parks and baseball fields and that sort of thing."

His father was also active in the IAPD. Young Fred attended IAPD conferences with his father in Quincy, Peoria and Springfield. These venues are too small for todays state conference with its more than 3,000 attendees.

Hohnke was co-chair of the 1997 IAPD/IPRA Joint Conference Committee.

Like his father. Fred is a strong proponent of commissioner education and since election to the Woodridge Park District in 1989, he has attended every Illinois state conference plus the National Recreation and Park Association annual congresses.

Fred and his wife, Violet, have three children ages 26 to 30, but can't tell at this point whether any of them—including Fred C. Hohnke III—have the parks and recreation bug.

Father and son Jack and Tim Cassidy like to golf together.

And together they've been a powerful force for quality of life in Peoria as well as communities throughout the state.

"I think it's extremely important [to volunteer for public service], because I think people take for granted what they have in a community," says Timothy J. Cassidy, president of the Pleasure Driveway and Park District of Peoria and an IAPD board member since 1992.

"Its a commitment. There's no compensation and a lot of time involved away from work and family."

Tim and Jack are attorneys for Peoria firm Cassidy and Mueller. Tim and wife Angie have five children ages 5 to 16.

John E. "Jack" Cassidy and wife Helen have nine children and 27 grandchildren.

Jack was president of the IAPD in 1962. Later, as state representative for Illinois' 45th district, he co-wrote the Illinois Tort Immunity Act with then IAPD general counsel Bob Stuart.

"So if you see any special benefits of that Act, now you know why," says Jack.

As a trustee for the Peoria Park District, Jack sued in the Illinois Circuit Court to stop Interstate 74 from going through Bradley Park.

He argued: "You can't take public land for public use unless someone has the authority to say what the paramount authority is, and how can you say a park is any less important than a highway."

After a three-year struggle, he lost the case but won for the park district a 200- acre settlement, which eventually became a golf course.

About board service, Tim says: "Be honest, truthful. Don't try to hide anything from the public. Let the chips fall where they fall. This is [my father's] philosophy also."

—by Ann M. Londrigan



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September / October 1997/ 21


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