Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this May 7th, 2024.
Have your host, James J. Mailov here.
In part two today at 330, we're going to welcome in Nicole Menzel,
Library Director with the Lester Public Library of Rome.
Looking forward to talking with her.
Right now, our good friend, Don DeSarcy, is in with us
a recreational supervisor with our Wisconsin Rappix Parks and Recs Department.
Don, good to have you in studio.
Thanks for having me, James.
Feels like it's been too long.
It has been.
Been too darn long. Good to have you here.
Thank you, you too.
We appreciate all the work that you and the Parks and Recs Department do in our area.
And we're going to actually touch on a couple of things today.
But I want to let the audience know there is no way we can cover everything you guys do.
Yeah, a lot.
Yeah, yeah.
We will give you information a little bit later on how you can get in touch with Don
and how you can find out more about this website, social media, all of those things.
Definitely.
I wanted to start off with Don, actually something that we're talking about a little bit in our pre-game.
So we have some swim lessons coming up.
We do.
Let me talk about that a little bit.
Sure.
We're offering swim lessons this summer at the Aquatic Center.
We do have some help if you have a question on which class your child might need to be
in.
We have one of our instructors that's going to be there today until, I'm sorry, this morning
until 10.30.
She was there.
Yeah, yeah.
And then she's going to be back on Thursday morning between 8.30 and 10.30 and that's
at our office at the Central Lia Center, which is 2.20 third Avenue South.
Right in front of our office, we've got a table set up.
And she's there with all the class information and our registration opens that next Monday.
So you can kind of get a heads up and know what class you should register for.
Very cool.
So I don't know if I've ever told this on the air before, but when I was a kid growing
up in Chicago, we didn't have a whole lot of swimming that we were doing.
I wasn't until I moved up here and I was about 13 that I actually learned to swim.
A lot.
And my papa, who was an old Marine and everything, did the whole push me in the inlet
and the camera lot and just bloop me up, bloop, and I go in.
And I haven't been able to get out of the water since.
I love swimming, I love all swimming activities and all that.
But part of the reason he did that was because he was, we lived on Lake Camelot and he was
very worried about a young kid being around a body of water.
That's something that most families around here know.
They're pretty aware of that.
A lot of water around here, for sure.
And very aware of how important it is for our kids to know how to swim and those things
and swim lessons while they're fun and a great time for kids.
As adults, we understand the importance of this.
We do.
And kids are just having a blast and we know it's good for them.
And you know, parents out there know better than I do.
My kids are all older and stuff, busy schedules and it can be hard to be able to get kids or
get to get to get to something to be able to sign your kids up or to find out more information
on these.
So that's why it's really great to hear she has a second opportunity for this.
She does.
It's probably tough for some parents to get there during the day but we had to work around
her schedule as well.
Yeah.
She's busy teaching swim lessons and swim classes and that sort of thing.
But she's very, very knowledgeable and she'll be super helpful.
Yeah.
And a great person to have being able to teach your kids all these swimming things and
you can feel a lot safer and throughout the summer and stuff them knowing all of that.
There'll be much more comfortable around the water.
Yeah.
We also want to reach out to all parents out there and all you great adults and everything
because we're looking for coaches.
We are.
We need coaches for T-Ball and our coach pitch ball.
Those are Mondays and Wednesdays in June and July.
It's a pretty short season.
A lot of fun to coach.
We do need some, mostly we need pitch coaches but we do need them for T-Ball as well.
Again, a little bit of a quick story here.
I actually coached my little brother in Flag Football for a while.
I should let everybody know.
I am not a football coach.
I do not have any history in this.
I have no information.
I watched a lot of football.
That's about what I had going for.
You know, we need some reps.
Yeah, see the reps.
Yeah.
There's that part of it too, but just speaking to the, you know, you don't necessarily
have to be Bill Parcells to be able to be one of these coaches or anything.
It's about having fun.
It's about making, you know, being the adult around kids and all those things that that entails.
But having fun and having a good time.
It is.
And it's just kind of making sure they're in the right place.
Yeah.
Really?
That's really it.
Yeah.
You're kind of heard in cats, they're really.
Yes.
It's so true.
And it's, you have so much fun with this as well too, as an adult.
It is a fun program.
Sure.
I know that there's so many of our locals that are always asking me of ways that they can
give back or they can put into our community.
And not everybody has dollars and cents that they can donate or invest.
You got to now work too.
Time.
Yeah.
You can put your time into it.
And you get to coach football.
I mean, you get to brag to your friends, you're a football coach, you're going to say,
I mean, that's pretty cool.
And these kids, it's so fun to hang around them.
They, I'll say this, especially if you really do love sports, kids remind you of why you
love sports.
Oh, they do.
They do.
They do.
It's such a blast to be around and everything.
It's fun to see them learn.
Yeah.
We need the T-ball, the pitch coaches, and then we need refs for football, which is going
to be in the fall.
Great.
I mean, I'm sorry.
That's a long ways out there, but we need to find people.
Yeah.
And as you, again, something you probably know better than I do, it's never too early to
throw that stuff out there.
It's not.
We're looking forward to getting a bunch of good new coaches and refs and everything for
the upcoming seasons so these kids can go out there and have some fun.
That'll come up fast.
Yeah.
We know how fast the summer goes, so.
If somebody's a little nervous about being a ref or coach because they've never done
that kind of thing before, you guys just don't throw them out there, right?
We have a meeting before and then we've got a whole packet put together to try to help
them with practices and that sort of thing.
Basically the first two sessions are practice and then after that, it's just kind of keeping
them in order, making sure they're in the right batting order, making sure they're on
the field in the right places, kind of move them around and make sure they're safe as
well.
Chances are if you're willing to volunteer to coach one of these sports, you probably
know the sport and that's going to help you a lot going into this because.
It will.
It will.
Again, it's not X's and O's as much as it is being in the right place and you're having fun
enjoying themselves.
It's having fun and you don't have to have a ton of knowledge about this ball, but it's
helpful, like you said, and the football rafts are actually that's a paid position.
Something else to keep in mind, especially a lot of college kids and stuff out there and
everything.
That's a great opportunity for them.
And it looks good on a resume.
Yeah.
Working with the Parks and Recs Department always looks good on a resume.
It never hurts, whether it's a college application or it's a job application, it looks very good
on there.
I want to do.
Oh, I wanted to get into the volleyball camp coming up too.
That's exciting.
It is.
It is.
We've got that coming up on July 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th.
That's for the third through sixth grade kids and then the 15th through 17th for seventh
and eighth grade.
We have a great instructor for that.
He has so much experience and he's going to have a couple of people helping him.
If kids want to get familiar with the game and really learn some good pointers or if they
just want to get better at the game, this is going to be a great opportunity for them.
You, when we talk about volleyball, it should be noted too.
This is one of the bigger rising sports, not just in Wisconsin, but in all of athletics.
Women's athletics is the new investment to make.
It is just rising more and more and getting more and bigger and bigger.
Many kids, man, women, it doesn't matter.
Being involved in these sports, it only is going to give them more opportunities, more
chances.
That's saying that any one of these kids necessarily going to go on and be the next great this or
anything like that, but the confidence that they build in these things, that they will
take with them.
They will.
They will.
And this is four days in a row, so it's kind of nice that they'll remember things each
day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know I learned a lot better that way, so that's pretty cool for them.
That's very good.
He's done a lot of these camps before, so, you know, what works.
When we, for these things that we are mentioning, Dawn, do we need to give different information
for each one as far as if people want to register or find out more?
The registration is all in the same place.
Okay.
It all starts on Monday.
Excellent.
So we'll go ahead and give the information on that before we wrap up and how you can register
out there.
I know we're intriguing people with these.
How do I sign up?
I hope so.
We'll get to it.
We'll get to how you can sign up.
There's also a basketball camp coming up.
There is.
Yep.
That one.
Let me see here.
I love basketball, Dawn.
I'm waiting to talk about this.
Great.
So we have two sessions.
We've got one in June.
It's the 24th through 27th, and then one in July.
That's the 29th through August 1st, and that is from 4K all the way up through 6th grade.
And that'd be the grade they're entering.
Okay.
Oh, good, good no-taff.
Yeah.
So that is also the four days in a row.
I think that's going to be a lot of fun.
We have a great instructor for that as well.
She's done a lot of coaching, and that sort of thing with other kids, or I think the junior
high kids as who she coached.
And I think she's going to be a lot of fun, and it's going to be a good, good intro,
or maybe just honing some skills.
It's a blast.
I do mention I am a little biased here.
I love basketball, but I will say too that I think that when if I had to pick a sport
for a kid to learn, it would be basketball.
And mainly in part because I think it's a beautiful game, but it uses creativity.
You have to have an imagination.
You hire and die coordination at a max when it comes to that.
On the working with other people, teammates, and all of those things.
There's so many things on there that are great life lessons for kids, and oh yeah,
it's a lot of fun.
Basketball's fun.
It's a fun game to play.
And just like we were talking about before with any of these other sports too, it's not
so much about how many points the kids scores or anything like that.
It's so much about the enjoyment they have, the confidence they build in.
And one other thing that I almost forgot until this one came up, Don, when I first moved
out here, I had a hard time making friends.
I know that's going to be shocking to the audience.
I sports, sports is how I made friends.
That is where it's at.
People saw it was fast, and I'm like, okay, I want the fast kid on my team.
What's his name?
May love hard.
Sure.
And that's how I made friends.
There's that part of this too.
When kids sign up for these things, they're going to meet new kids from maybe from different
schools or different counties or something like that.
Who knows?
They have something in common.
Yeah.
That's a really fun part of this too.
It is.
So there is all of those things going on, and there's even more.
I wanted to get into a little bit of the, boy, I so don't just let the audience look
behind the curtain a little bit here.
We get these great pamphlets from our friends at the Parks and Recs Department of 2024 Summer
Recreation Activity Guide.
And I was looking this over and dawned right away, zookeeper for a day.
I could not take my eyes off of this one.
It sounds so much fun.
Well, I'll tell you last summer that filled up, I think the first day that we had
registration open.
We did add more sessions this year.
It is, there's, oh, there's several dates.
So just be sure to check the flyer for all those dates.
And it is a lot of fun.
You have a couple of hours with our zookeeper.
You get to help feed the animals.
You get to do some scooping of some things, clean the pens, that sort of thing.
It's a lot of fun.
We got some really cute pictures from last year.
I know that the kids really enjoyed it.
I did some research before the interview here, like I always like to do it.
It turns out kids love animals.
Kids do love animals.
Absolutely.
This is a fun one.
Not for kids and everything, but in all seriousness, we in this state have a different relationship
with animals than I think most, with our ag industry and so much of that.
This is another opportunity for kids to learn maybe some empathy for our ag industry and
our farmers and some of that, or spark an interest in that.
I've known a lot of vets in my life and a lot of them started right here in Wood County.
Yeah.
Then went on to either Steven's point or some of our other Madison, some of our other
good universities that have great vet programs.
You just don't know what could be sparked or maybe they just have a good time.
There's no wrong answer.
Right.
That's a good experience either way.
It's also a really fun program.
This program is this is new word, right?
You were.
Last summer was the first time we did it.
It's a great one.
Yeah, it is.
I don't get to do this very often with you guys because there's so much to talk about.
I want to make sure to get in everything we can.
But a real shout out to the Parks and Recs Department, listening to their community and looking
for new ways to do things.
You guys have been doing great stuff for a long time.
And it'd be pretty easy to just sit back and like, well, we've always done this.
This is how we've always done it.
To listen to the community, to find new things, to get people involved, get them out of the
house, get the kids doing stuff.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It's really cool.
Thank you for that.
We do try to get some different ideas and try to, you know, try to grab whatever the
interest is in the community.
And it can be tough.
So I appreciate that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I hear you on that part.
Yeah.
We know a little about that.
Oh, for sure.
In speaking of those kind of things, I know that one of the things that has come up is
the Pilates and yoga workshops.
The Jamie is incredible.
Got some good people over there.
We do.
Yeah.
She is great.
She's going to be doing another workshop.
And that's on Saturday, August 24th, again, it's a ways out there.
But we know how fast summer goes.
She does plan to have that day is going to be all of her workshops.
And then in the fall, we're going to have some more sessions.
So it'll be like six week sessions coming up in the fall.
So this will be kind of a preview.
If you've ever wanted to try it, learn more about it.
That's what the workshops are about.
It's one of those things that, from what I've read and from what I understand from Jamie,
if you're a novice and you've never done this before, it's a great opportunity.
If you've been doing it for years, it's a great opportunity.
Yep.
She'll give a lot of one-on-one time.
So she'll be, you know, she'll be able to kind of move around and help each person
if they need, you know, some extra attention, I guess.
She's a really good teacher.
She's very, I've heard a number of people mention her before and how hands on and how helpful
she is.
And it's one of those things that you don't have to be the super flexible to be able to
do.
You might actually become a little more flexible from doing it.
You might.
And she has a lot of experience.
So she's worked with a lot of different people.
Don, we're speaking with Don for a Recreation Supervisor with our Parks, Wisconsin Rappers
Parks and Rucks Department.
And Don, one of the things that we have focused on is a lot of outdoor activities, a lot
of those kind of things.
I also want to touch on, if you don't mind, some of the other things that you have going
on over there, another opportunity for kids.
And one of the better programs I think you do, at least, is the Safe Sitter Program.
Yes.
More and more, you know, for better or worse, kids are kind of watching kids, you know,
and that's happening more and more for whatever, you know, whatever we can get in all that.
But it is happening, you know, one way or another.
Yes.
I know as a parent and as one of those kids that was a babysitter, I felt better because
I had the confidence of my mother and father who were babysitters and them teaching me
and telling me so much.
I felt a little more confident about it.
I had to felt great having a class that I could take.
It is a great experience for the kids.
And as a parent, I can't imagine the confidence and the reassurance you feel a little bit
from that.
Oh, yeah.
We've had parents request babysitters from our program.
They emailed and said, hey, we really need a babysitter for this day.
Can you recommend some of the kids from the class?
Or can you send it to the kids that were in the class?
So it's a really early job opportunity for them if they want to make some extra cash,
but it's a good experience to build the confidence for the babysitter themselves.
Yeah.
It's a great investment in your kid.
And not for nothing.
You say your kid takes this class and they babysit one kid, okay?
Well, chances are, statistically, they are probably going to go up and grow up to be a parent
one day.
Likely.
Yeah.
Those babysitting lessons and everything, those are very apt to being a parent and not
bad.
I know one of the things that I appreciated about Lincoln and about some of our schools around
here, often in early parenting classes, some of that.
It only helped me all the more because, you know, to all parents out there, we understand
you can have all the help books on the world, all the guidebooks in the world.
There is no really truly preparing for what your child could do or what happened.
You know this.
Now, kids in charge, you know, having this babysitting class is only going to make them
much more confident.
You feel more confident in the kid's safer.
They are definitely and they are, there's a lot of kids taking care of their younger siblings.
So this is a nice opportunity for them to learn more about that as well.
You guys do a great job as well talking and doing a lot of creative things too.
And so I want to just quickly remind everybody that there's rock, painting, charcoal expressions.
There's a lot of those kind of creative outlets as well to do.
As we're wrapping up Dawn, if you don't mind, you have some free programs coming up.
We do.
We've got a couple of things at the zoo that are going to be new for this summer.
We have Casey Twist coming there.
And she's going to be there for three different dates on Saturdays, June 15th, July 13th and
August 24th.
Those times are going to be posted online as well as in our flyer.
And then we have I Heart Art.
She's going to be doing some face painting for us on June 29th and August 3rd between
one and three.
And those will all be at the zoo.
Yeah.
They're going to be great.
A lot of fun, great instructors, great people to be in doing those as well.
And keep that in mind.
Those are going to be a lot of fun to do.
I just a couple of other things I want to mention as we are wrapping up here.
If you don't mind Dawn, first off, we have to talk about pickleball going forward.
I think that's just a given like we have to even if even if you guys didn't offer it,
we'd have to at least mention pickleball for sure.
You guys offer a great pickleball drop in play.
That's been a very active one.
It has.
It's a good opportunity to just get in, join a game, meet some people, learn more about
the game.
There's all different levels of play there.
It's in this really nice group that is there.
So there's a lot of regulars and they are more than willing to help somebody new and
kind of help them learn the game and they'll meet new people like I said.
Talking with a couple of people that play locally here and everything, that was one of
the big things that they wanted to get across.
But they're always looking for new people to be enjoying the sport and they like teaching,
they like learning, you know, helping you learn how to play the sport.
So I don't think that that's anything that you keep you away from it.
And again, just like a lot of the stuff we were saying about the kids enact these activities
and ain't that much different for you older people out there and I'm talking to myself
as well because I wanted them.
You know, as we get older, it gets harder and harder to meet people.
It's harder and harder to run into people.
And I'll be honest.
I'm not a bar guy.
I'm not, you know, so that slims my odds even more and stuff.
These kind of things are a great opportunity to not only get out there, have some fun and
enjoy some of these events, you know, whether it's pick a ball or it is some of the art
things.
They're getting you out, giving you something to do.
You're going to run in new people, meet some new people, have a good time at the same
time.
It's pretty cool.
It is.
It's a win-win kind of situation.
Yes.
It is.
Don, with the last two minutes that we have here, I'm going to get to the whole reason
I brought you in today.
Okay.
Yes, we love our parks and recs departments and talking about all the different things that
you guys offer over there, but I see that coming up in August, you have an adult flag football
league.
We do.
It was a great success last season.
Oh, this is awesome.
Oh, it's so much fun.
So much fun.
So cool.
We had eight teams sign up last year.
We had hoped for four and we had eight and we still had more that wanted to join.
So I think this summer, this season might be even bigger.
We do, again, need some ruffs for that and we're starting early on that hunt because we
need them.
Yeah.
It's just, it's really fun that the group is a lot of fun.
They had, they get prizes at the end of the season.
So I mean, the first and second place get a nice, nice payment at the end of the season
and they had a good time.
They played at Meadfield last year on the men's baseball diamonds.
Oh, right up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, smart.
Yeah.
It's the fall.
So.
Don, I've been looking for something like this for a long time.
Yeah.
I want to be a part of this.
All so much of what we talked about today sound like so much fun.
If people want to register if they want to find out more about some of these things, where
can we send them?
Send them to our website, www.activityareg.com.
That's our registration page.
We have our flyer out on our city web page, www.rapids.org.
And then we also have, in the back of our flyer, don't forget all of our aquatic activities
coming up because that's going to be a big, big season for the summer.
Yeah.
Coming up in August, you can join the Kraken's in God that they'll cool the sale.
Isn't that cool?
Isn't that cool?
It's actually June 10th.
They have a summer.
June 10th.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Keep seeing.
You've got to get on this stuff right now, everybody.
Exactly.
As you are hearing this, you should be getting on your laptop, your phone, or something like
that and registering.
And again, Don, we appreciate everything you and your team over there do.
Thanks so much for joining us today and all the great fun that we're going to have this
summer.
This is a favor throughout the summer if any of these could use a little bit of another
shout out or something like that.
Let us know.
If you can join us, you can.
Otherwise, we'll make sure to mention it, but we'll be talking about you throughout
the summer.
Very good.
I appreciate it.
Thanks, James.
Thank you.
We'll be back for more Midday Magazine coming up right here at WFHR, locally grown radio.
