Seasons

Weekly update #329 5/10/2026 to 5/16/2026

Everything has its season, and this week, we saw some items wrap up and others preparing to open. Let me share some of each as I tell you about my week serving as mayor of the best small town in America. 

This week, I participated in a walk-through of the Shields Park Pool. Over the last several months the mechanical system has been updated from the early 1990s version. The work also included a fresh coat of paint on the pool bottom with fresh competition lines for the season. New diving blocks with the new Shields Park Pool logo look great. Add in some improvements in the diving well and you are almost ready to launch for the 2026 pool season. Don’t forget that as soon as the season comes to an end the contractor will head into the major upgrades to the children's area, concessions, new bathrooms on deck, and so much more. Thank you to everyone involved, and I can’t wait to see it finished and ready to open again for the 2027 season. 

For the sixth time we said goodbye to the area high schoolers in the Mayor’s Youth Council. During the meeting we learned about what they did with their $20 Kindness Challenge and how they made a difference for someone else. A few of the items were placing flowers on cars at the hospital and reminding staff at Seymour High School they are appreciated. We then visited several of the parks and learned bits of history along with current offerings. We discussed the Shields Park Zoo and why Gaiser Park has its name. One of the stops was the City Cemetery that is maintained by the Seymour Parks Department. We discussed the Reno Gang and how their burial led many families to move family members to Riverview Cemetery. As they often do, the group left me with hope for the future, and I can’t thank them enough for that.

Congratulations to Charlotte on winning the Emerson Elementary second grade class presidency. Mrs. Keil and Mrs. Chase have taught a great unit on elections for many years and do a wonderful job teaching the students about elections including the electoral college. Thank you, teachers, for helping grow young minds with well developed units like this one.

Thank you to the over 800 volunteers who worked on over 100 projects this past week for the Jackson County United Way 30th Annual Day of Caring. Thank you also to Wayne Brooks for his 30 years of volunteering at this event. 

Hopefully with this week's update you see a few seasons closing like the 25/26 season of the Mayor’s Youth Council and the school year approaching the end. Areas like the pool could easily be both with the opening of the Shields Park Pool for the 26 season or the close of the season on the old mechanical equipment from the 1990s. Even though I didn’t dedicate an entire paragraph to them I met with a few recovery-related groups and tried to connect them with others in the same area as they decide how to move forward in our community. Seneca the Younger said, "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."