Tyler Bybee, the city’s parks and recreation director, entered the Taylor Press studio for an episode of “Taylor Talk with Jason Hennington” Aug. 14.
Bybee, who has been in the position since April 2021, made his second appearance on the show. During the interview, Bybee talked about events the city has offered and improvements to the parks. “The city has always maintained parks and constructed parks, but we didn’t have a lot of programming coming from the city,” Bybee said.
He said hiring Ian Davis in April as recreation coordinator has allowed Taylor to offer more programming.
“That addition of Recreation Coordinator Ian Davis has helped push that along, really activating our parks,” Bybee said.
Some of the added events include Summers in the Park, soccer at Memorial Field and adult fitness classes.
Memorial Field, which holds the parks and rec department headquarters, is one of the main topics Bybee discussed during the show.
“A lot is going on at Memorial,” Bybee said. “My window looks onto the track so I can look out and see what we may be doing. We feel honored to be able to take that place where the school played since the 1920s and that pressure to keep it going.”
He said that the track along the field is being worked on to be resurfaced. The upgrades come through a grant from St. David’s Foundation.
Bybee said the overall goal is to make Memorial Field more of a fitness park while not taking away its ability to be used as a functional football stadium. He mentioned a possible improvement was using the unneeded spaces where buses used to park.
“(We’re) making it more park like, connecting it back into Murphy Park,” said about using the space around the field. “It is a part of Murphy Park, but it doesn’t feel like it.”
Additionally, Bybee gave updates on the splash pad at Heritage Park.
The splash pad, which essentially squirts water up from the ground, turned off in the middle of the summer due to the surface shifting underneath. Bybee said water would run down the street and would not stay in the splash pad.
Bybee said his parks and recreation team hopes to present a new plan for the splash pad to city council next month, with reconstruction beginning in January so it is functional for the upcoming summer.
“Still kind of a similar layout being flat because we use it for other things,” Bybee said. “We can’t really put fixtures up in that space because it’s a plaza too. We were running four or five of the spray features and it’s got 15 or 16, so I’ve never really seen it run in full capacity since I’ve been here.”
Other future amenities include a new playground at Bull Branch Park and upgrades for the pool at Murphy Park.
The full episode can be found on the Taylor Press Facebook page.
