The summer months is one of the premier times to utilize city parks and additional quality of life activities as the temperatures continue to stay warm.
With roughly 13 parks and 200 acres of parkland, the City of Levelland has met the National Recreation Park Associations standard of having a park that is a 10-minute walk throughout Levelland.
City of Levelland Parks and Cemetery Director Dustin Reichelt explained there is a small snippet of Levelland that does not have a park, but for a majority of Levelland community members, a park can be found close by.
The farthest park in the eastern part of Levelland is Kauffman Park, while the furthest parks north of Levelland is L.G. Griffin Park. In the southernmost part of Levelland, the Country Club Park and Oxy Sports Complex cover that area. The biggest park and furthest west is the City Park with 110 acres. Reichelt added that the most centralized park would be considered Lobo Lake.
In addition to those main parks, pocket parks are scattered throughout Levelland such as the park located on 4th Street, 17th Street and Bartlett Park.
For the past two years, the parks department has touched each park and added or renovated different aspects such as the pavilions at L.G. Griffin Park and George Price Park. The city park located on the west side of Levelland will be getting new picknick tables in August. Tree additions have been made to different parks through tree grants by the Levelland Breakfast Rotary Club the past two years. New trees have been placed at Kauffman and George Price Parks.
Ranging from picking up trash, cutting grass and irrigation, park crews are constantly working to keep parkland in the best condition possible.
“We mow the parks once a week and sometimes they need to be mowed more after heavy rain periods but once a week is pretty much what we can get to,” said Reichelt. “We do get behind at times and it doesn’t come without its challenges as irrigation is probably one of our biggest challenges in our park system. We have irrigation on water wells and on some of our parks and those days could be a challenge at times.”
With the hotter temperatures gracing the West Texas area, watering has become a task for all. “It takes a lot of time, effort and energy to keep our parks up, but we do it with pride and we are proud of our park system here,” said Reichelt. “Sometimes it doesn’t look the best or is quite as good as I would like it, but we always get compliments from the community.”
Reichelt has seen more traffic than previous years coming out of COVID-19 with fishing at the local Playa Lakes. Additionally, kayaking has picked up after the instillation of the dock built at Lobo Lake. Reichelt is not sure if it is miscommunication or some other reason, but he explained community members are allowed to use non-motorized boats on both lakes as the ordinance that allows that was passed in 1984.
“When we put it in the dock, we did see some use with people that did have kayaks but not very much at first,” said Reichelt. “What we did see a lot of was a lot of people using it to fish, hang out and just go out and see the lake and the fountain. This year we’re seeing a lot more people fishing and we’re also seeing a lot more usage on the kayak launch.”
Recently, Reichelt had a phone conversation regarding a mother wanting to know the process for using a kayak on the lakes as her son had saved money to buy a kayak.
“We’ve had people buying kayaks just because we put that launch in, so I thought that was pretty neat,” explained Reichelt. “It’s about getting people out there and providing opportunities they never thought was possible in our parks.”
Reichelt added that he would love to add some more fishing possibilities at some point whether that’s a fishing tournament for kids or even adults. At the same time, he explained that maintaining the parks and keeping everything squared away comes first before stretching himself thin.
“There are more opportunities that I’m looking at for recreational things in our parks, but we have to go slowly to implement them, so we don’t overwhelm ourselves,” said Reichelt.
An additional option for community members is to enjoy time soaking in the pool at City Park.
“I have not ran the numbers to see where we’re at compared to last year, but just by looking out there, I think we’re pretty much out of COVID-19 era,” said Reichelt. “When we opened back up in 2021 we were really busy because everybody wanted to get out of the house and then the numbers leveled off the following year. I think this year we’re pretty much in normal territory.”
The big task for this summer was getting fully staffed with lifeguards, but after announcing the pool make close on certain days or be closed indefinitely because of the lack of applicants, there was a flood of applicants.
This year the pool is fully staffed, which is the first time since 2019. Speaking with other pool entities within Levelland, Reichelt says those groups are fully staffed which as well is a good thing to see as the nation as a whole is struggling to find lifeguards.
Reichelt says the pool will stay open until August 6, before closing down until next summer. While most kids are the lifeguards, they are also students and the beginning of August marks school and sports beginning.
Heading into the heart of July, Reichelt hopes community members enjoy their time at the parks throughout Levelland and consider visiting different areas as all parks offer different things to enjoy. From playground layouts, basketball courts, frisbee golf pads and open areas to throw or kick a ball, Reichelt says anyone can find something fun to do at the parks to enjoy the outdoors.