Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 20, 1993 TAG: 9302200244
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CITY PARKS CHIEF GETS OHIO POST
Roanoke is losing Gary Fenton, the city's parks and recreation manager, to Columbus, Ohio.Fenton, who has held the Roanoke post for four years, will become director of parks and recreation for Columbus next month.
Columbus, the state capital and home of Ohio State University, has a parks and recreation program that serves nearly 1 million people.
Fenton, 45, said Friday he hates to leave Roanoke, but the Columbus post was a professional opportunity that he could not decline.
"It is with mixed emotions that we leave," he said, adding that his wife and children like Roanoke.
Fenton said he would have been happy if the opportunity had come a few years later. But it came now and he had to take it sooner than he might have preferred, he said.
The Ohio city has a budget of $23 million for its parks and recreation program, with a staff of 330 people.
Roanoke spends about $4 million a year on its parks and recreation operations, with a staff of 115. Roanoke's figures include parks and grounds maintenance crews.
Fenton is familiar with the Columbus area because he began his career there as assistant parks director in Bexley, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. He later worked in Grandview Heights and Marion, Ohio, before going to Chesterfield County, Va., to become chief of recreation.
He worked in Chesterfield for five years before coming to Roanoke in 1989.
Going back to Columbus "will be like coming full circle to the place where I began," Fenton said.
He began his career in Ohio after graduating from Southern Illinois University with a recreation major.
City Manager Bob Herbert said he regrets that Fenton is leaving, but was not surprised.
Unless the city's salaries for such posts remain competitive, Herbert said, the city might lose other outstanding administrators.
Fenton makes $52,000 a year in Roanoke. His salary in Columbus will be $72,000.
"He has done an outstanding job for us," Herbert said. "It is a major step up for him."
Fenton has reorganized the city's parks and recreation programs to better meet the needs and wishes of city residents, Herbert said.
"He has fashioned them to meet the needs of today."
Fenton's resignation is effective March 22. He will begin work in Columbus on March 29.
Herbert said the city will begin looking soon for a successor.
He said he thinks the post will be attractive to many people.