After 51 years of service to the county he loves, Patrick County’s Recreation Director Clyde Crissman will retire on March 31.
“It’s time. I’m 75, so it’s time to move on to another adventure,” he said.
Crissman started working part-time for the recreation department in 1973. When he began his career with the county, Crissman prepared ballfields for games, mowed the existing grounds, and officiated football, softball, and baseball games.
Before he was hired as the recreation director in 1985, Crissman joined the Patrick County Parks and Recreation Association as a board member. In this role, he organized and led fundraising activities to help support the creation of five community parks the department would manage.
Crissman believes those feats, along with the creation of the DeHart Park pool in 1980, were the highlights of his career.
“All the parks have been built since I’ve been here. They were started in 1978, and finished sometime in the early 1990s,” he said.
During his tenure, Crissman also organized and implemented DeHart Pool activities, including the annual July 4 car show, celebration event, firework display, the Christmas Festival of Lights, and other programs.
Crissman said he and the department could not have accomplished all it did without the community.
“The help of all of the people in the county made the parks what they are. All the people in the county, businesses, anybody I asked for help, it was always there,” he said, adding the board of supervisors also were supportive.
The department has “just been a great place to work,” Crissman said. “It’s been challenging. We’ve had a lot of good people help around here, and a lot of donations. People giving us land and giving us money, helping with the pool, and stuff like that.”
For example, he said the Clyde Crissman Field was created by volunteer Cecil Hall.
Crissman said Hall created the ball field for free using much of his own equipment to do so.
“He only asked for his grandson, who was helping him, to be paid for the work he did. So, it should really be called the Cecil Hall Park,” Crissman said.
Local girl scouts and eagle scouts created a picnic table area, a bridge, and an outdoor grill area for the park., he said. A community garden was created by local residents and the gazebo at the Hospice Memory Garden was built by Patrick County High School (PCHS) students.
“People in Patrick County … they’re the best. I’ve been all around everywhere else and people in the county here will step up when the time comes,” he said.
Crissman said that is precisely what he will miss the most — the people and helping residents through the department’s various programs.
“That’s all I’ve done ever since I started in the Recreation Department. People always helped out here, so in turn, I tried to help people,” he said.
Crissman believes service, and being able to serve, is an opportunity and a blessing.
“Service is a means of returning thanks to those who have helped and supported us,” he said. “Whether you serve the young or the old, fundraise for the community or coach a ball team, you’re making a difference in the lives of others, your community, and the world. We live in a beautiful place with kind and generous neighbors.”
One thing Crissman said he wishes he could have created a Senior Citizens Center, located at one end of the Patrick & Henry Community College (P&HCC) building. However, plans are in place to meet that goal.
“That’s our next phase of this building – to have a gym or a place where senior citizens” can meet, he said.