March 2016 - Parks & Recreation - 35

of Natural Resource Recreation
bond fund grant for the Development
of Joe Tichvon Park, and in 1991, I
wrote a Michigan Natural Resource
Trust Fund Grant for the initial
phase of our Riverwalk trail project.
I put in the grant that we were trying
to create a safe highway across the
community to connect our schools,
our parks and our downtown districts
using the two rivers and our city as a
focal point.
" With our safe highway concept,
we were trying to keep the kids off
the roads with our bridge underpasses
on our major intersections. People on
the other side of town could jump on
the trail, maybe cross only one road,
and get all the way down to the ball
fields and never have to cross another
road. Fortunately, we owned a lot of
floodplain river frontage in the community, which gave us access to a lot
of those places. It also happened to
be the primary focus of the Natural
Resource Trust Fund and the governor's initiative making funds available
to build trails at that time. We did get
the city looped in 2010; it was almost
a 20-year project in different phases. "
Scheurer was also instrumental in creating three additional neighborhood
parks that put these resources closer to
residents and their homes.
A Rewarding Career
Being able to work your entire career
in the community where you were
born is a rarity, and for this Scheurer feels very fortunate. " I've been
able to see many improvements in
the community that I was a part of
and that generations to come will be
able to appreciate and utilize. I truly enjoyed what I was doing at work
every day because of the variety. At
the beginning, I was working with
youth and recreation programs and

Mary Scheurer's leadership was instrumental in the planning and completion of the
8-mile Portland Riverwalk trail, which encircles the city.

With our safe highway
concept, we were trying
to keep the kids off the
roads with our bridge
underpasses on our
major intersections.
then writing grants and involved in
the development of the projects. Seeing the changes in the community
at the ground level and dealing with
second-generation people in our programming and the public in general
was also rewarding. "
Hard work, dedication and not
asking " anybody to do anything
that I wouldn't do " are part of her
leadership style. " You can't come in
and be a 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. employ-

ee and accomplish what needs to be
done. To young professionals, I just
try to lead by example and remind
them that when you are dealing
with the residents of the community, remember we are public servants. I'd also recommend that they
consider joining a professional association like NRPA. Anytime you
can get networking with other people in your field, whether it's your
local/regional recreation group,
your state association, the networking and the resources that are available to you really are an asset in
trying to do your job because you
don't have to recreate the wheel. "
Scheurer, who owns a couple hundred wooded acres and loves to be
out in nature, plans to spend her retirement working on the farm originally owned by her grandfather.
Sonia Myrick is the Managing Editor of Parks
& Recreation magazine (smyrick@nrpa.org).

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March 2016 - Parks & Recreation

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