MOULTRIE —
After nearly 40 years with the Moultrie-Colquitt County Parks and Recreation Department, Jim Burrows is retiring to spend more time with his family.
Burrows, 71, was hired by Jim Buck Goff in 1973 and has had just three bosses during his career: Goff, Rick Gehle and Terry Peek.
For much of his career he coordinated the recreation department’s adult softball and youth football programs.
Burrows said the biggest change he has seen over the course of his career has been the upgrade in facilities.
Since he started, the Knuck McCrary Complex has been built for the rec department’s softball program. In its heyday, the facility played host to local, state, regional and national slow-pitch softball tournaments, bringing teams and their fans from across the country to rural southwest Georgia.
The Knuck McCrary Complex also was the home of the Colquitt County High girls slow-pitch softball team for a number of years.
Burrows said he is “saddened” by the lack of interest in recent years in boys and adult softball. The recreation department is willing to host tournaments, but has had trouble finding teams willing to play.
“They just don’t want to continue playing,” he said.
Youth baseball continues to thrive and in 1996, the Magnolia Sports Complex opened. The complex not only plays host to the popular local baseball programs, but also has been the site for Georgia Recreation and Parks Association district and state baseball tournaments.
“We’ve got great facilities now,” Burrows said.
Burrows was honored by the Georgia Recreation and Park Association in 2001 when he received District III’s Jim Buck Goff Distinguished Professional Award.
The award was doubly meaningful for Burrows, since it was named for Goff, the Moultrie Recreation Department director who hired him.
“I thought highly of him,” Burrows said of Goff upon receiving the award. “He taught me a lot and he did a lot forthe people of this community and not only in recreation.”
The award goes to “an individual who has excelled in situations where they are primarily responsible for the supervision or implementation of recreation, parks or leisure services for an agency in the third district.”
“Jim’s very dedicated to the things he believes in,” then-recreation director Rick Gehle said after Burrows received the Distinguished Professional Award. “He is a true professional.”
Burrows grew up in Waycross where he ran track and played football. After helping lead the Earl O’Neal-coached Bulldogs to an 8-2 record as a senior in 1959, Burrows went to the University of Georgia, where he played football for one season under Wally Butts and a second year under Johnny Griffith.
He left school after two years, but returned to Georgia in 1965 and worked his way through, completing his degree in 1968.
He worked in private business before putting his degree to use when he came to Moultrie.
He and his wife Elaine, who retired several years ago from the Colquitt County school system, have two children.
Daughter Katie Burrows Martin now lies in Madison, Ga., and has two boys and a girl.
Son James Brown Burrows Jr. lives in Nashville and has four children.
Burrows said he hopes to be able to do more fishing and spend more time with his wife, children and grandchildren.
“But I’ll be busy,” he said. “I believe in staying active.”
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Jim Burrows started with the Moultrie Recreation Department in 1973. Lonnie White
Discussion
Jim Burrows retires from recreation department
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