Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 23, 1990                   TAG: 9003232836
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                 LENGTH: Medium

AMUSEMENT PARKS STEP UP HIRING OF SUMMER WORKERS

Dave Varga, director of personnel at Water Country near Williamsburg, said he is stepping up recruiting this year. Varga said the park, which opens May 19, has just begun interviewing applicants.

"I've been to all the high schools in York County" during lunch breaks getting students to fill out applications, Varga said. Varga said the park also is hiring 15-year-olds for the first time this year.

"My goal this year is to get over 1,000 applications," he said. The park has about 400 so far, he said.

"You know, with Busch Gardens, Colonial Williamsburg, the Pottery (Factory), there's a lot of jobs," he said.

Water Country pays its employees $4 to $4.70 an hour, he said.

Busch Gardens near Williamsburg and Kings Dominion between Richmond and Fredericksburg have already hired many employees who will work weekends until the parks open full time.

Dick Corrada, director of personnel at Kings Dominion, said the park has hired 2,330 summer workers so far - about 100 more than last year.

Kings Dominion pays $4.60 an hour on week days and $5.60 an hour on weekends, up 20 cents an hour from last year, he said.

He said the park offers workers returning from last year an additional 20 cents an hour. And employees who stay through Labor Day get a bonus, he said.

"It's going well," Corrada said. "We'll probably end up hiring close to 4,000."

He said applications are up, 2,900 this year compared with 2,400 at the same time last year. The park hires people within a 50- to 60-mile radius including Richmond, Fredericksburg, Tappahannock, and Louisa and New Kent counties.

"We've got people from everywhere coming," he said.

The park will continue hiring all season as attendance picks up, Corrada said.

Summer hiring also is going well at nearby Busch Gardens, said Jewell Bailey, the park's employment manager.

"We're basically staffed for the weekends at this point," Bailey said.

Like Kings Dominion, Busch Gardens hires within a 50- to 60-mile radius, although some employees come from farther away, she said.

People want to work at Busch Gardens for "the appeal of the job and the fun of being here," she said.

"A railroad engineer from near the state line drives in every weekend and runs the train for us," Bailey said. "He enjoys doing it."