CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

"She not only heard me, she acted on it"

Register-Herald - 10/2/2021

Oct. 3—When Leslie Gray Baker began to lead the City of Beckley Parks and Recreation Department in 2012, she did not know that children with disabilities were being excluded in the city's playgrounds.

For kids with autism spectrum disorders and physical challenges, the parks were places to watch other children play. The jungle gyms and swings were not only old and outdated but had been designed for children who did not live with challenges.

Lola Rizer's daughter, Belle, was one of those little kids in 2017.

Belle was born with Down syndrome, a genetic condition that can result in lower muscle tone and smaller stature. Belle would sometimes walk to the edge of the playground, where city workers had put mulch beneath the slides and swings, and sit down in the grass and play with the mulch, rather than try to walk across it to get to the swings.

In a conversation with Baker in 2017, Rizer shared Belle's situation and mentioned that many kids with physical challenges find it difficult to walk across mulch or, in some cases, even grass.

"In our conversations, we were talking about the challenges that some kids face when it comes to just getting to a playground structure, or getting to the point where they can participate with their peers," Rizer said.

The oversight was likely not intentional: Until Baker's appointment to the position, the park system had languished, for a number of years, in "benign neglect" by city government. There were zero — as in "not a single" — Parks and Recreation employees, and the city had left it to the Board of Public Works employees to perform upkeep on the city's green space and swimming pools.

Prior to 2012, Baker, formerly a stay-at-home mom, had been overseeing the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine and Youth Museum of Southern West Virginia when then-Mayor Bill O'Brien asked her to serve as director of the Parks and Recreation Department.

When Baker agreed to take the assignment, she had a staff of four full-time employees and seasonal workers at the Exhibition Coal Mine, which takes tourists underground to learn about coal mining history.

Baker explained that her parents, Donald and Anna Luvader Gray, had moved their family from Charleston to Massachusetts when Baker was young. In Massachusetts, her parents took her to museums, which gave her an understanding of the significant role a museum can play in shaping a culture's understanding of history and community.

The Grays moved to Beckley when Baker was a high school freshman, and she brought her love of museums with her.

Baker had begun volunteering at the Youth Museum of Southern West Virginia in the 1980s when local actress Karen Vuranch was curator there, she said.

"We had to to be the best at what we could be," she explained. "It was a very small children's museum. It was one of the first ones in the country, but we were here.

"It was such an asset. We didn't have anything else like that for kids to come."

Baker said she had a strong belief in providing the region's children with their own museum and for educating the public about coal mining history in West Virginia. For locals, the Exhibition Mine gave them a sense of pride and community, as they learned what coal miners had provided for the nation. Those from out of state learned about the region's coal mining history.

Eventually, Baker was director of the Youth Museum of Southern West Virginia and the Exhibition Coal Mine. She used online marketing tools to draw 48,000 tourists annually to the mine.

"When you're really interested and passionate about something, and you feel what you're doing is important, it's really easy to get other people to come along the way," she said. "I really have always just tried to be of service to others.

"I've had some really great mentors, other museum professionals that helped me and then, when I stepped into the Parks position, I looked for people who had way more experience than me and talked to them."

She hired two full-time people and four full-time maintenance workers.

Beverly Farris, who now is the city's recreation manager, left the Board of Public Works to come to Parks and Recreation. In 2018, Jeremiah Johnson and Micah Davis joined the team.

"The greatest strength of my department is the team that we have put together for work," she said. "They're all very professional, very committed to what we do here."

Baker's first project as director of Parks and Rec was to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the 13 parks, two swimming pools and New River Park campground. She said workers analyzed safety, re-organized the summer basketball programs and developed a master strategy.

"The first year was spent just checking everything out," she said.

At the same time, she said, Raleigh County Make It Shine, in cooperation with Beckley-Raleigh County Chamber of Commerce and Beckley Area Foundation (BAF), had assessed city parks and decided to offer financial help for renovations at New River Park. As a result, the Parks and Rec Department renovated two bath houses at New River Pool, updated the pool house and painted it, took down old fence and installed new fence.

Through the funding, the city was able to add a $40,000 recreational "big toy" for climbing and swinging at New River Park.

When she heard from Rizer, Baker's vision of the playground upgrades took a different turn.

"She had made me aware of how playgrounds with mulch or even grass are difficult for some children to navigate," Baker said in 2018. "She even said Belle would not feel comfortable walking across mulch to get to play apparatus.

"That just went right through me," Baker said. "It made such an impact on me, that there would be a child who would be able to see the toy and wouldn't feel comfortable walking to that toy.

"I immediately started doing research on what the best practices are for parks."

One of Baker's goals was to upgrade city playgrounds with new play toys, swings and other equipment with Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding that Mayor Rob Rappold, who was then the city recorder/treasurer, had secured for the city. HUD requires federally funded playgrounds to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a law that aims to make public space accessible for those with disabilities. Baker had already planned to be ADA-compliant.

Baker began to research the best surfaces for Belle and other local kids who had not been invited to play on the city's playgrounds because of the equipment and mulch.

She found out about Poured-in-Place Rubber Ground Cover, a surface that is smooth like asphalt but has the "give" of rubber, she said in 2018.

"We jokingly refer to it as the 'Tempur-Pedic of ground cover,'" she said. "You have to walk on it. There's a real give to it, kind of like concrete, but it's permeable."

The Park at East Park became the city's first fully ADA-compliant playground in 2018, thanks to Baker's efforts.

The toy and the surface underneath it invite children with disabilities to play.

Since then, Baker has directed similar ADA-compliant renovations at Temple, and New River Park hosts at least two ADA-compliant playgrounds that give everybody a "seat at the swing."

"Leslie is one of the people to be in the position to do something to benefit the community," said Rizer. "A lot of times, you talk to people in a position of power in the community, and sometimes, you feel like they hear you, but she not only heard me, she acted on it, and I think all of our parks here in the Beckley area are better for it.

"It's still a work in progress, but when she has the opportunity to embrace the inclusion of all in a public space, she definitely keeps that in the forefront when planning, and I love her for it."

In 2018, Baker's Parks and Rec Department began to oversee Historic Black Knight Municipal Park, which includes a nine-hole golf course, a swimming pool and a restaurant, Chilson's.

She said she feels a sense of accomplishment in her work, particularly with the effort to make more inclusive city parks.

Baker has also updated the campground and installed interpretative signage along walking trails in the park. She said the development of the city's parks and recreation is just beginning.

"We're kind of in our infancy," she said. "We know how beautiful it is here. We know what our resources are, and we've always not been the best at getting the word out about it.

"We're well on our way, but we've still going to have to take some work."

Baker, who is the mother of two sons, Jesse Baker and Cody Baker, said she is most proud of her sons and her family.

Professionally, she said, she is proud of "just all of it.

"I'm proud of my team," she said. "Everybody is willing to go anywhere in the department and do everything they can to help.

"I saw that during Covid. Everybody worked. Nobody was furloughed.

"I couldn't be prouder of all the people that work there."

___

(c)2021 The Register-Herald (Beckley, W.Va.)

Visit The Register-Herald (Beckley, W.Va.) at www.register-herald.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Nationwide News