Mexico Parks and Recreation Director Chad Shoemaker displays a draft plan of Fairground Pool on Jan. 30 at Hart Career Center. He was a guest of Mayor Ayanna Shivers, who was hosting her monthly Munch with the Mayor event.

Mexico Parks and Recreation Director Chad Shoemaker’s dedication to his field resulted in a high honor Feb. 20. He received the Fellow Award from the Missouri Parks and Recreation Association during its annual conference and expo held at The Lodge of the Four Seasons in Lake Ozark.

He joins a 53-year history of those named Fellows by the association and the award came as a complete surprise.

“It seems like everybody but me knew about it,” Shoemaker said. “It was a huge shock. I’m humbled and happy to be in this profession. It’s full of great people and I love working for the city and people of Mexico.”

Candidates are nominated by other parks and recreations professionals, so Shoemaker guessed he was nominated by staff in Mexico and parks and recreation staff from Columbia.

Shoemaker left the corporate world after working for Optec and started as the parks and recreation director in 2002. Optec was a magnet wire production facility in Mexico, he said. Before working there, Shoemaker had his own landscaping business in Mexico in the 1990s.

Shoemaker has always called Mexico home. He is a Mexico High School graduate and only moved away to earn his forestry degree and serve in the U.S. Navy.

“Chad has always been willing to step up for MPRA and serves as a role model for many in our profession,” an association video stated. “With his leadership, the city of Mexico passed a half-cent permanent parks sales tax, increased total park acreage by over 25% and created the Mexico Park Foundation.”

Shoemaker was on the park board when he worked for Optec.

“I have always thought community opportunities are important, and when the opportunity came up to apply, I tried for it, and next thing you know, here I am,” Shoemaker said.

The community’s successful support of the parks sales tax gave the department a chance to conduct improvement projects, he said. The department’s successes are not just due to Shoemaker, however. It is the department staff that make the difference, he said.

“The [staff] take a lot of pride in what they do. That’s probably the thing I’m most proud of is we’ve developed good staff over time,” he said.

Shoemaker’s mentality as director is to focus on realistic accomplishments. You still make plans for the big stuff, but you have to address the immediate community needs first, he said.

“We’ve always taken a base-hit philosophy. We’ve never really tried to hit big home runs. We just try to have an attitude of constant improvement,” he said.

So if a major project needs more time for planning, the department does that, Shoemaker said. One such project is the Fairground Pool replacement, which parks and recreation started work on in 2007.

Staff also conduct periodic surveys to gauge what the community wants, not just special interests, Shoemaker said.

“The [special interests] often times have the passion to get something done, but we also have to take care of average joe taxpayer as well,” he said.

Shoemaker still sees individual passion projects as something to help improve the community, he said.

The department is also exploring possible trails, and grant opportunities are being researched, Shoemaker said. A major future project could be baseball and softball fields, he said, adding it will probably more more of a public-private partnership through the park foundation, like with the tennis courts and pickleball courts.

The department also is considering improvements at Garfield Park and its shelter and basketball court. Nutrient issues at Plunkett Park Lake also need to be addressed, Shoemaker said.

All the parks have some maintenance needs, and Shoemaker has to find a balance between those and future growth plans.

“It becomes a dance. We do the best we can,” he said. “We know we’re not perfect, but we’re not going to quit trying.”

nav-oc Naviga Writer 2020-02-26T22:55:39Z false yes NEWS