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Responsible for maintaining the grounds of various county facilities and for organizing a wide variety of leisure activities such as youth football, cheerleading, and wheelchair basketball.

Hello, I'm Steve Beverly, and on this edition of Tennessee is Talking, the topic is Madison County Parks and Recreation.

Recently awarded more than $1.8 million worth of grant money.

Madison County Parks are about to get a lot of upgrades.

Let the conversation begin.

That's so cool.

Then that's when I said that.

The problem with that idea is.

Wow, that was amazing.

Then I came up with a solution.

What was that about?

Here's what I think about it.

Now we're talking.

West Tennessee PBS presents Tennessee is Talking.

Let the conversation begin.

Thanks for joining the discussion here on Tennessee is Talking.

Hello, everyone, I'm Steve Beverly, and from maintaining beautiful green spaces to offering engaging activities for all ages, the Madison County Parks and Recreation Department works to help foster a vibrant, active community.

Here to tell us more is its Executive Director, Matthew Martin.

Matthew, great to have you with us, and pleasure to have you on .. is Talking.

Good to be here.

Let's start off by asking you about, if you would.. an overview of what the missions and goals are for Parks and Rec in Madison County.

Our mission is to provide quality leisure services for all Madison County residents.

We try to make sure every demographic, every ability, physical, mental, we have activities, parks, and programs for every ability level that wants to come out and enjoy our parks.

Now, we have told people here at the beginning of our program about the grant money you've received and about a lot of the improvements that are on the horizon.

Now, Godwin Park is one place, and it's scheduled to have a $70,000 upgrade in 2025.

If you will, give us a thumbnail of what that's going to entail.

Godwin is a smaller part of our grant, like you said, 70,000.

What that's going to be is a new, smaller pavilion.

We've got a large pavilion out there.

We're going to put a smaller pavilion out closer to the road and do a new bathroom.

It doesn't have a very good bathroom facility now, not very accessible to wheelchairs, and just not up to the quality we'd like to have for our citizens.

The grant will cover that restroom, the pavilion, and parking, which right now, it's just mostly dirt and gravel.

We have no true ADA parking.

We're going to repave that entire park and make it more accessible to everybody and just more pleasing to the eye and safer.

Everything's being moved up closer to the road rather than back in the back.

We just finished a playground at Godwin two months ago and had a ribbon cutting for that.

For people who are new to our community, I always try t.. that we don't leave them with a void there.

For people new to our community, where is Godwin Park?

Godwin Park is in Oakfield.

It's roughly five minutes from Bourne Park, which is our premier park.

Yes, Pugh Bourne Park's a beautiful place.

It's going to get better, too.

If you were to leave Pugh Bourne, take a right and go to the-- I'm not local, I'm from Kentucky, so I'm just going off.

I get lost here all the time.

You go up to Christmasville Road, make a left, go out about five minutes, and right there on the left, secluded by itself in a quiet little neighborhood is Godwin Park.

Let's talk about some of these other ones, and you just mentioned one.

Why don't we just dovetail right into that about Pugh Bourne Park?

What has been the hallmark of that park over the years?

Of course, I've been there many times and for things like horse shows and just picnics, things of that nature.

What is it about Pugh Bourne Park that makes it unique for our county facilities?

I don't really know.

It's on the far north end of the county.

It's been there for years.

It has a little bit of everything.

We did move the equestrian center from Pugh Bourne out to Young, which is on the complete other side of the county on the south end.

It's got a brand new equestrian center.

We can holler about that a little bit, but Bourne has something for everybody.

It is our premier park.

We've got ball fields.

We've got walking trails.

We've got biking trails.

We used to have the horse arena.

We've got football fields, picnic pavilions, a playground, tennis courts, pickleball, soon to be a $300,000 splash pad.

That's one of the new things you were telling us about.

That's one of the new surprises.

That project right there, it's going to be 100% ADA accessible.

Anyone in a wheelchair with any disability can get into it with minimal issues.

It's for all ability groups, all ages.

It's not just for kids.

That project is just going to be ridiculous.

I foresee it being packed.

There's no doubt in my mind, because I know back when the equestrian center was there and you had horse shows, but even not just that.

It's just a great place to enjoy the outdoors out at Pugh Bourne.

That's exciting news that you're telling us about that.

What about some of our other facilities in Madison County?

Particularly if you will give the viewers-- again, I'm going to suggest for those who may be new to our community, a thumbnail of where they are, and also what are the special features that we have in some of our other parks?

That's a long one.

Madison County is a huge county.

I believe it's 559 square miles.

It takes me 45 minutes to get from my house in Threeway to Beech Bluff on the other side.

It's typical of our parks are spread out being that we're county, our parks are in the county and we're way out there.

Bourne Park, like I said, is our premier park, it is in Oakfield, and we have our Godwin Park a little bit further away from it.

If you come into town, go towards the Denmark area, you're going to find Savannah Williamson Park, which is a small community park, about 8 to 9 acres.

It's got a little basketball court, walking trail, new playground, pavilion.

Keeping on a little further from Denmark, you would be at Polk Park, which is on Westover Road, on the west side, I guess it'd be the west side of town.

That's another one of our established parks where our park offices are.

We have a brand new playground there, softball, baseball fields.

One of our main maintenance facilities is there.

We hold a lot of community activities out there like movie nights, things like that.

It's got a lot of green space, good space.

There's a possibility for a large walking trail eventually with some more grant money.

Zipping back over to the Denmark area, we've got two parks.

One is out by Coke and one is somewhere out near Denmark.

They're facilities that our City or County Parks Department normally don't have.

That is a historical park.

We've got not one, but two Civil War era historic areas, which one is Salem Cemetery.

Then the other one is Britton Lane Battlefield.

They're parks that people probably don't really know are out there, but they're full of history.

Great history, all of those.

Did who was buried in Salem Cemetery?

No, but I think you're about to tell me.

I'm about to.

I'm sure you've heard of David Crockett.

-Oh, yes.

-He's not buried there, but- [laughs] That was a good line, Matthew.

the gentleman that beat him for state rep and caused him to go to Alamo, Adam-- oh now, Adam Huntsman.

-Huntsman, yes.

He is buried there.

That's history.

If he hadn't beaten David Crockett here in Jackson, David Crockett wouldn't still be alive, but he probably would have lived a lot longer and not went down to Alamo.

It's amazing when we think about the history that is in particularly a lot of these rural parks and rural cemeteries that we have here in our community.

Now, Matthew, if you will, we opened up the broadcast by talking about $1.8 million in grant money for Parks and Rec, and I got to go tell you, that doesn't happen every year for communities.

What will that primarily be used for?

Park upgrades.

I got to go thank our county commission.

Without them, I wouldn't have gotten to apply for it, because it's a local park and recreation fund, LPRF grant.

I went for the gusto, and they gave me everything I asked for, but it's a 50-50 grant match.

Without the county commissioners kicking in $600,000 as a grant match, I couldn't even have applied.

There's a park.

We're going to be developing a.. in Denmark.

We had 53 acres donated from a l.. the Talley family, and we were able to use the value of that land as our match.

The park in Denmark, with a playground, pavilion, parking things, it's going to be a brand-new park.

The county taxpayers will not have a dime in that park because we used our match, a free park.

How long will it take to develop this park?

I have no patience, and I'd love it to be done tomorrow.

The grant hasn't been signed yet.

That's around December 1st.

Once December 1st we get that grant contract signed, we can hit the ground running.

Of course, weather is going to mess us up.

We can't do paving, things like that.

I hope to have that brand-new park ready to go by late spring.

Some of the other things we're doing with that grant money, getting ready for state games, which is going to be big for Jackson, Madison County.

That's going to be huge for the economy of our area with all the visitors that will be here.

The number I've heard is $15 million in two weeks.

That's every year until we lose it.

The plan is to get our park infrastructure back up to snuff, put our best foot forward.

We don't want people from East Kentucky, or I'm sorry, Tennessee.

I'm a Kentuckian.

Sorry, that slipped out.

-There you go.

Tennessee people coming all over and we have potholes that can swallow up a Volkswagen.

We don't want that.

We want them to come in and see fresh paving.

Everything is as best as we can possibly get it.

We want to put that best foot forward.

We have to do our share as County Parks to be a good partner in that event with all the other organizations that are putting money into state games.

We're going to be paving Bourne Park.

We're going to be paving Polk Park to get those ready.

I did not mention on the grant money, too, Beech Bluff, which is way out in the county.

That little community is getting a new playground and pavilion.

We're getting ready to do a lot more.

The county is considering improving that whole property out there.

We've got Beech Bluff Rec Center, which we're running a ton of programs at, and they're going to get that as well.

We've just got so much going on.

I've already got my next grant project in mind, a Recreation Trails grant, which is an 80-20 match.

It's only 20% us.

What I'd like to do there is a park.

I'm going to put you on the spot.

Do you know where Chigger Ridge is?

I don't.

I've asked at least half the peop..

They've never heard of it.

I've heard the name, but I do..

It's on the south side.

It's only about 1 mile from Young Equestrian Center.

I call it a hidden gem.

It's more like a state park.

If I had to classify it, it would be Madison County's own little baby state park.

You go in.

There's a small access road.

You think you're going to hit some trees.

Go up a hill, go through a little entrance, and you end up in a parking lot.

You take a little trail back to about a 5 or 6-acre pond that's full of fish.

Beautiful area.

You can see it on our website, too.

There's a lot of pictures of it.

What I want to do, because that project is not accessible at all, it's hard enough to walk back there with all the sticks and stumps, we're going to propose an ADA-accessible boardwalk from the parking lot all the way down three-quarters of the way down the lakefront with fishing piers so we can make that park more accessible and also more usable because very few people know it's there, and even few people take advantage of what it offers.

It's just a beautiful little quiet nature area.

You have bowled me over with this because it has to be-- I don't understand how you manage all of these things at the same time, but the other part of it is, how do you develop a vision for what you want to do with these parks?

You have to be visionary to make these projects come alive.

It's creativity, I guess.

I've been in Parks and Rec for 20-plus years.

I borrow ideas from other communities that I see that works very well.

Some of the pictures I provided of this boardwalk is another community, but it gives the viewers an idea of what that's going to look like.

I learned long ago never to reinvent the wheel.

Take what works for others and use it for yourself.

Some of these things like Chigger Ridge, when I saw it, I saw that project in my mind, and I thought, if I can get this done, it's going to be a real feather in my cap and .. that Jackson-Madison County can just be very proud of.

Tennessee has a lot of grant money for Parks and Rec, where in Kentucky, there's not much.

Tennessee is very lucky to have many pots of money from TDEC, Department of Environment and Conservation, and TDOT, Department of Transportation, that is earmarked for Parks and Recreation type projects.

I worked for TDEC.

My first job out of college was TDEC, and I worked for the people that did the grants, so I got an idea of how to write the grants, what scores well, what kind of projects get funded, and that's led me to be able to see what works here in Madison County.

I've just been blessed, but like you said, you don't get $1.8 million grants very often.

Until that point, I was up to $1.2 million, so I've doubled my grant output just being here, and I'm tickled because it's hard to get money when you're in Parks and Rec.

You're on the bottom of the totem pole.

That's universal, but if we can find ways to use money from the state to fund our projects and not cost our taxpayers money, to me, that's a win-win.

People have to understand this is a quality of life issue .. to have first class parks and recreation opportunities because it makes people want to move there and to be in that kind of environment.

I want you to delve in here, because we've talked a lot about the individual parks, but what about the programs that we have for kids, such as Youth Football League and Cheer Camp?

Tell us about how that all unfolds.

It was before I ever got here, but the way it works out, the City of Jackson has a very highly established Parks Department.

They do a great job with what they do.

We don't duplicate services, and Madison County, years and years ago, took that under their wing and realized, well, what the city of Jackson isn't doing is cheerleading and football, so we took that over, and it's been going on for many, many years.

We just had 106 girls for cheerleading, and we had up to almost 500 boys in football, and of course, it packs in Bourne Park.

It's been a successful program for years.

My assistant, Tony Ragland, that's his baby, he takes that on himself, and he's done a wonderful job of it all these years.

Living in as many different areas as I have over my lifetime, and I recognize how this is such a value to communities.

Let's look at this.

One of the hottest new things that has come along in recent years-- -You're going to say pickleball.

You know I am.

It's pickleball, because this reache.. as well as young people, but it reaches an older demographic of people who love that game.

How is that exploding in Madison County?

Well, thank goodness the city has taken the brunt of that.

They have a lot of pickleball courts, but like you said, for some reason, it's like soccer sometimes.

No matter how many fields you build or how many courts you build, there's not enough.

We have fielded a lot of people asking for them.

Part of my vision for that in Bourne Park, where we used to have the equestrian center, there's still the remnants out there.

There's an area where you used to walk your horses in a circle.

Now, I can see six or seven pickleball courts right there, and we already have lights up there that work, so that's the most expensive part of tennis and pickleball court, is lights.

We've already got them up there.

Another grant.

It's going to be maybe in two years when I get..

I would love to apply for pickleball courts, but if there's anybody out there in Madison County that would want to maybe fund a few pickleball courts, I'd be glad to name it after them.

I guarantee you, if you do, and you get that kind of money, I guarantee there will be people there to play it, because it's amazing.

I'm going to buy only pickleball courts.

That sounds good.

It just really, to me, and it was one of those that came out of nowhere, and then all of a sudden, I'm hearing, and particularly people who are over.. are finding this to be-- it's not as strenuous and stressful as playing a full court tennis, and they really enjoy the game, and that's interesting about that.

I want to delve into this, is, I'm sure that you get feedback back from people who use the parks everywhere.

How do you incorporate that feedback to try to deliver more and better services and improvements in Parks and Rec?

For the grant, one of the most important aspects they look at which help you score big on grants is public input.

We had two formal public input meetings before our grants.

What we did, we invited the public in, and we had our parks set up.

We had a little flip chart, Polk Park, Godwin, Beech Bluff, all that, and what we did was input.

We established from them, the people that attended, "Okay, what do you want?"

The thing about the grants is they want to see you're not doing what Matthew Martin wants or what Steve Beverly wants.

You're doing what Madison County told you to do, and we invited the public in, and we prioritized their ideas of what they wanted to see at each park, and that's what you see in our grants.

The grant that we've got now, you see the results of what the public told us they would like to have at each of their parks.

Looking at this, and the big picture of everything, how do you try to determine how we do reach out to the various age demographics?

The first thing a lot of people think about is young people so that they have those opportunities, but also for the whole family.

It's been many, many years of experience, but I have always come into a community, and the first thing I try to do is touch base with local media, such as PBS.

The media has got to be your friend.

You've got to tell them what's going on, invite them out.

That gets the word of mouth out about what you're doing.

Now, it has evolved into things like social media.

We have a Facebook page.

We have a website on the county government, madisoncountytn.gov.

We have a newsletter that we just established.

It's a paper, but it's also available online.

Each month, we have a newsletter that you can subscribe to and see what's going on, what events and activities we've got, and what news that's coming on with our parks.

I try to work really closely with TV stations, papers, radio, whatever I can do to get the word out and preach the gospel of Parks and Rec, because people take what we do for granted a lot.

Parks have been there forever.

We've got to do a better job of marketing that, just like Chigger Ridge, where people don't know it's there.

Exactly.

You don't want them to be best-kept secrets.

You want it to be well-known in the community.

I neglected to ask you, when we were talking about feedback, how do people get in touch with you and be able to tell you what they like or don't like?

I have an open-door policy at our office.

If you come in, if you catch me in the office, you just ask for me.

Someone tells me you're not there as often.

Right now, I'm running around quite a bit.

A lot of people have my cell phone number.

I don't mind answering it, as long as you don't call me after midnight.

I'm okay.

You can catch me in the parks running around.

You can come into the office.

You can email me.

What's the email address?

My email, personally, is mmartin@madisoncountytn.gov.

mmartin@madisoncountytn.gov.

Now, complaints go to Tony Black at the city.

I'm just kidding.

-[laughs] I've known Tony for a long time.

He does get a lot of complaints because we've had an identity crisis, what I identified when I got here.

A lot of people identify county parks as city.

The good thing is he gets a lot of the complaints.

I don't have to hear them, which, thank you, Tony, I appreciate that, but we've got to reestablish our identity and let people know that we are a separate organization out there.

The neat thing about city and county parks, you can see a line between them.

You've got city parks that are more municipal, a lot of asphalt, a lot of sports, concrete, things like that.

Our parks are more natural areas, a lot of green space, a lot of open areas, a lot of quiet, peaceful areas, and that's our niche.

We're trying to do a better job of getting the word out as far as what we have to offer.

You've got barely 30 seconds left, so in a nutshell, what is it that is most personally rewarding about what you do?

Yesterday, we had our new ribbon cutting at the playground at Young.

Little bitty girl.

We hadn't even opened it yet, and she's already .. She's probably four years old, not bigger than a peanut.

Goes flying down that slide, and just the smile on her face, you can't duplicate that.

That speaks for itself.

You know you've done a good job when the kids are happy.

Thanks so much for sharing the story of Madison County Parks and Recreation.

Executive Director Matthew Martin, it's been a pleasure to have you with us.

Thank you, Steve.

Sadly, we are out of time for this edition of Tennessee is Talking.

We do want to thank Matthew Martin for stopping by and telling us about Madison County Parks and Recreation, and if you want to re-watch the program or share it with a friend, remember you can stream it anytime on the PBS app along with all local Channel 11 programs.

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