GREENVILLE, N.C. — After more than 50 years of working in recreation, City of Greenville Recreation and Parks Director Gary Fenton has announced his retirement, effective April 9, 2021.

 

Fenton has spent the past 14 years in Greenville where he has overseen a number of capital projects such as the Town Common inclusive playground, the Sycamore Hill Gateway Plaza, the Field of Dreams at Elm Street Park, the renovation of the South Greenville Recreation Center, Westpointe Park, and a beach volleyball facility. Fenton has also guided the department through a significant increase in the number of recreation and parks programs available to the community and spearheaded the recent purchase and development plans for Wildwood Park.

 

"Through my career, I have seen the countless positive impacts a high quality system of parks and recreation facilities can have on a community and its residents and visitors," Fenton said. "At every stage of that career, I've been privileged to team up with some truly dedicated and generous employees, citizens, businesses, and non-profits, working together to build and maintain parks, plan events, create programs, preserve green space, and improve the lives of area residents. Capping that off with a 14-year tour-of-duty with Greenville Recreation and Parks has been a real blessing to my family and me, and I'm grateful for having been given the privilege."

 

Throughout his career, Fenton has served as the department head for seven recreation and parks agencies. A 1969 graduate of Southern Illinois University, Fenton began his career as a Recreation Supervisor in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. He accepted a variety of other parks and recreation positions in the years and decades that followed, including other public positions there in Ohio, then in Virginia, then again in Ohio, then again in Virginia, and finally, in 2007, in Greenville.