Harry Waters was there before the Lee Beran Recreation Center.
Heck, Harry Waters was there before Lee Beran.
But after May 14, Harry Waters won’t be there anymore.
After that date, Waters will be retired. Forty-seven years with the Emporia Recreation Commission will come to an end. That’s a long time, longer than any recreation commissioner has served in the history of Kansas.
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” the 85-year-old Waters said with a little smile. “You have to change out the horses at some time. But it’s been a nice thing to do.”
For Recreation Director Tom McEvoy, it’s like suddenly losing his anchor.
“When he talked, people listened,” McEvoy said. “He’s seen it all. And his calm demeanor .... He’s going to be missed.”
Round and round
Waters grew up in Iowa, living most of the time in Marshalltown. A high-school and college athlete, he could have been the first Grinnell athlete in years to earn nine letters if he hadn’t gone into the Marines his senior year instead.
It wasn’t exactly a whirlwind draft. Waters volunteered in March of 1942, but wasn’t called to duty until July 1943.
“That was a weird year,” he said. “Every two weeks or so, a batch of men would be leaving for the Navy air corps or the Army specialty services, till pretty soon no one was left but the women and the 4-Fs.”
He served out his enlistment stateside, then bounced around the country for a bit. Colorado College in Colorado Springs for a master’s degree and a bit more football under his old coach.
Honolulu for a teaching and coaching job. Stanford for a doctorate and then back to Grinnell again for more teaching and a job in testing and placement.
Then an old friend of his from Stanford turned up in Pittsburg with an idea.
“He called me and said there’s an opening at Emporia State for teaching guidance courses,” Waters said. “The next thing I knew, we were on our way.”
Starting the string
Waters came to Emporia in 1953, the same year the Emporia Recreation Commission was founded. He received something of a warm reception.
“It was 105 degrees in the shade,” Waters remembered. “My wife said ‘What have you got us into this time?’”
What he’d gotten into, it turned out, was a university on the grow. The president, John King, was determined to at least double the enrollment. That meant a lot of opportunities, Waters said, “if you were young, eager and unafraid.”
So in short order, he became the assistant dean of students, the registrar, the director of admissions and finally, in 1960, the athletic director. About the time he was settling in, another opening popped up. The old director of student services had been on the Emporia Recreation Commission, but had just moved out of town. Recreation Director Jim Peterson popped the question: Would Waters consider joining?
Waters paused a moment.
“What does it pay?” he asked teasingly.
“Well, you know that,” Peterson answered.
He took the post.
Building up
When Waters came on in 1960, the commission’s home — an old YMCA building at Sixth Avenue and Congress Street — wasn’t very impressive, to say the least.
“It was a dilapidated old thing,” Waters said. “It had a track running around it, and if you were playing basketball and tried to shoot from the corner, it would hit the ceiling.”
Not that there weren’t good times. When the faculty could get up a basketball team, Waters would take the court against the best the students could offer. One year, the faculty team lost to every student team the first time they played them, but beat them all the second time around.
It was a good place to learn restraint at times.
“One of my colleagues once got a vicious foul on him — he almost started swinging,” Waters said. “He told me later, ‘I got my fist up there and then I looked at my fist and I said “Student!”’ He wouldn’t dare hit a kid.”
Just one year after joining the five-member commission, Waters and the others had to hire a replacement for Peterson. They chose Lee Beran, the longest-serving director Emporia has had yet at 38 years.
Waters had known Beran as a student. At the rec, the two worked together well, starting small but always looking to do something a little bigger than before.
“Whenever he made a proposal or a comment, it was always in a very low key,” Beran remembered. “It was never ‘You have to do it this way.’ It was always ‘Have you ever thought about ... ?’”
Slowly, programs began to expand. Slow-pitch softball came in, then co-ed softball, and then more. The commission started working with the school system to use its facilities from time to time, with Waters sometimes taking part in the negotiations. The programs started drawing more kids, more adults and even more elderly adults.
By 1977, the final piece had fallen into place. The recreation commission could move out of the Y and into a new recreation center on Fourth Avenue, one that would end up being named for Beran.
In the meantime, Waters’ wife Helen had been one of the people to lay the groundwork for Hetlinger’s Developmental Services. Its predecessor, the Lyon County Retarded Children’s Center, had been based out of the third floor of the Y.
“It was not quite safe,” said Beran, who once had to carry a wheelchair up three flights of steps. “The fire escape in that old building was difficult to navigate. How we would have taken down a wheelchair, I don’t know.”
Going on
As time went by, other commissioners came and went. Even Beran retired in 1999. But Waters continued on, always willing to serve one more term.
“They kept asking me and I couldn’t think of any reason to stay no.”
Waters’ presence was often a steadying influence, especially after the commission expanded to nine members in the 1980s. Suddenly, there were a lot of new faces — but there was also an old hand to show them the ropes.
That presence could be calming to directors, too.
“When I took over, we were growing so fast — our programs, our budgets,” McEvoy said. “Harry was the board member who would call me up and ask me how I was doing. He was worried about me with the stress. And I appreciated every time he called and talked to me.”
Things had come very far very fast. When he came on, Waters said, the budget might have been about $40,000. When McEvoy became director in 1999, it was about $750,000. These days, it’s nearly $2 million.
By now, Waters said, the rec is probably due for another building, or at least a satellite location. Maybe somewhere to the west, he said.
But if it happens, it’ll be without him on board.
“It’s time,” he said. “I just turned 85 and my physical abilities are so diminished. Actually, I think I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
He smiled as he said the last few words. Perhaps he knew how silly they sounded. Harry? Unwelcome?
Impossible.
“He really is the anchor of the board,” McEvoy said. “People talk about term limits and all that. But it’d be nice if you had an anchor.”
Comments
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funston (anonymous) says...
I 'm sorry I never met you, but I have been abroad 15 years and away from Emporia for over 20 plus years. I feel certain my father or Uncle must have known you.
I wish you love and happiness.
Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
Frank Funston Eckdall
ffunston@swbell.net
P.S. I remember well the old dilapidated building but didn't really play basketball. Wrestling was my sport. However, I did have a slow dance there with the prettiest girl in town in that dilapidated YMCA.
April 29, 2007 at 6:34 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
chawkins (anonymous) says...
Great story.
My recollection is that the old Y was located at 5th and Constitution, rather than 6th and Congress. My father had his bachelor's party there in 1942. When I attended Lowther Jr. High, we'd go across the street to the Y for swimming lessons.
I remember Mr. Waters when I was a student at KSTC in the late '60's, as well as Mr. Petersen and Lee Beran.
Thanks, Mr. Waters, for your years of service to the community of Emporia.
April 29, 2007 at 10:26 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )