Shawna Figy has been doing what she loves in her first month as the new Parks and Recreation Coordinator in Camp Verde.
Figy, a former Yavapai County juvenile probation officer, took over full-time as Parks and Recreation Coordinator for Michael Marshall after he was promoted to department director June 20.
“My first day was the first night of softball,” said Figy, who proceeded to reconfigure and redistribute the entire six-week Camp Verde Adult Coed Softball regular-season schedule to its six teams before clocking out. “Michael had so much on his plate. He said, ‘Oh, we’ve got one more team, so could you re-do the schedule?’
“I said, ‘Sure.’ I have a lot of experience with making schedules.”
But Figy wasn’t done, attending all three games at Butler Park past 9 p.m. She would do it again after work June 22.
“We had a new umpire starting,” said Figy, who also has been a full-time booster and team mom for Mean Machine, High Desert Youth Football and other local club and little leagues the last five years. “Michael was like, ‘Are you going to take a break?’
“I said, ‘No.’ I love it. I’m doing a lot of the same stuff I’ve done as a volunteer for years, only I’m finally being paid to do it.”
In addition to her duties administering the summer adult softball league, Figy will also be in charge of the town’s long-running Grasshopper Basketball league as well as the department’s semi-weekly bus trips to Arizona Diamondbacks games and other extracurricular events.
“I went to a game [July 16], and that was rough,” Figy joked. “Oh, pay me to go to a Diamondbacks game.
“I have actually put in quite a few hours, but a lot of it doesn’t feel like work.”
Figy’s next project, the Camp Verde Heritage Pool, will certainly have her earning her $15.85 hourly wage.
“People have given a lot of complaints that it’s a bunch of kids running the pool,” she said. “Which isn’t true — the pool manager has been there eight years — but they are younger. You don’t find many 35-year-old lifeguards.”
Figy’s focus, then, is to help organize and prepare the largely 15- and 16-year-olds on staff — many of whom are performing their first job and sometimes don’t understand basic professional expectations.
“If you don’t show up for your shift, or if you’re late, it’s a problem that affects the rest of the lifeguards,” she said. “It has happened.”
Lifeguards on duty had also not been using clipboards and had been going into the pool office to lie down after rotating out of their 15-minute shifts.
“They can do that when they’re not on post,” Figy said. “But when people see that, they notice that the office may not be clean or a bunch of other things. It sends a bad message.”
