The City of King’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board is seeking input from citizens

and park goers. The board has spent the past few months creating a survey to help shape priorities for park planning, maintenance, and programming at Recreation Acres and Central Park for the next few years.

“I’m hoping to get a better feel for what the people of King want from their parks,” said

Parks and Recreation Director Olivia Calloway. “Our parks are aging, so there are many projects that need our attention, as well as gaps in our recreation offerings. I’m hoping to use the feedback from the survey to prioritize what we as a department focus on.”

Calloway was hired by the City of King as its first parks and recreation director in December of 2018. Since then, she’s brought in a wide variety of programming from small classes like baking, group exercise and art, to larger scale events such as Valentine’s Day carriage rides, and travel softball tournaments.

She’s also been part of creating a dog park in late 2020 and just celebrated the opening of a 9-hole disc golf course in September 2022.

Another King offering is Burgerfest, an Independence Day celebration/burger cookoff that started in 2019.

“It’s such a fun event and has really grown into a community festival.”

Calloway said big projects like that are challenging, but it’s exciting to offer new opportunities to citizens.

“My goal is to offer things that enhance peoples’ lives, from increasing health through fitness challenges, or providing fun things to do on weekends, like concerts and movie nights in the park. We have two wonderful parks here in King and my ultimate goal is to encourage and facilitate folks taking advantage of them,” she said.

In 2023, Calloway hopes to reach even more people in King. She said although the department has been in existence for the past four years, she often gets comments that folks are surprised at what the city offers.

The survey is available until February 1 and is online on the city’s website,

www.ci.king.nc.us/parksrecreation or paper copies are available at City Hall, King Public Library, Stokes Family YMCA, and the King Senior Center.

“It only takes about eight minutes to complete and the results from the survey will be used in…