Jones retires after long career with Parks & Rec

Julia Jones will retire July 12 after 10 years as head of Cape Girardeau's Parks and Recreation Department, concluding more than four decades of work in the same field.

She is a native of the Show Me State, having been born in Cabool, Missouri, in the Ozarks, but since early childhood Jones had spent most of her life in Florida.

That all changed when her mother sent her a clipping from the Southeast Missourian about the impending retirement of Dan Muser as director of Cape Girardeau's Parks and Recreation Department.

"[Mom] said if you're ever going to come back home, now is the time," Jones remembered, adding her mother was 85 years old at the time and not in good health. "I had already accepted a job in Brevard County, Florida, on the Space Coast but -- call it a God-wink or some premonition -- I realized that wasn't going to be the place for me, and I declined the position. It was not long after when Mom sent me the clipping, so after 30 years of working in the Sunshine State, it was time to come here."

Ironically, Jones' family had relocated to another Cape -- Cape Coral in the Fort Myers area of southwest Florida -- when she was 6 years old.

Retiring director of Parks and Recreation at City of Cape Girardeau Julia Jones poses for a picture at the Arena Building in Cape Girardeau on Friday, June 18, 2021.Sarah Yenesel

At Florida State University, where she had matriculated as an undergraduate, Jones originally started out as a biology major.

"I realized I didn't quite belong," she recalled, adding her interest in nature and in swimming and canoeing, set the stage for her life's vocational endeavor.

"Germans believe strongly that enriching your cultural and spiritual side is just as important as work," Jones said, noting finding a spot in Florida State's leisure services major back then was extremely competitive.

"I was told Florida State only accepted 30 people in the major each semester, and it just so happened that one student just dropped out," she said.

Jones said she was accepted after assembling three letters of recommendation and writing a paper on her desire to pursue work in parks and recreation.

Retiring director of Parks and Recreation at City of Cape Girardeau Julia Jones sits on a swing at Arena Park in Cape Girardeau on Friday, June 18, 2021.Sarah Yenesel

Later, Jones earned a master's degree in public administration from the University of Central Florida.

"Even though we lived in Florida, we came to Cape Girardeau during the summers because my grandparents lived in the house, called Longview, that I live in now, that my great-great-grandfather built in 1870," she said.

The 19th century ancestor to whom Jones is referring is George Christian Thilenius, who was Cape Girardeau's mayor from 1867 to 1873 and for whom a city street is today named.

"After being mayor, he served in the [Missouri] House of Representatives near the turn of the century," Jones said.

The former Cape Girardeau mayor died in 1910 and is buried in Old Lorimier Cemetery.

"Public service, then, is deeply rooted in our family," Jones said. "It's been the biggest honor I could ever have in my career is to come back and serve the citizens where my great-great-grandfather served."

Accomplishments

Jones is quick to dole out praise to her colleagues.

"The heart of the city is Parks and Recreation and it comes from the people I work with," she said, "Everyone knows sports is a big economic driver for Cape."

During Jones's tenure, the $12 million SportsPlex was constructed, and Cape Splash, built in Muser's time, was expanded twice -- in 2015 and 2017.

The Shawnee Sports Complex has also been a success, she said.

"I'm partial to Capaha Park -- I live close to it and have known it since childhood -- and we're approaching the end of the six phases of the 2012 Master Plan with the pond renovation a big item still to be done," she said.

The changes to the park's Rose Garden have been a source of some disquiet in the community, she admitted.

"We couldn't make [the garden] ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] accessible without appropriate parking and access to it. The roses were deteriorating because the soil was not amenable," she said. "The reconstituted garden will be leveled out with new soil and raised stone beds [and] roses will continue to be a focus but once the work is done, visitors should expect to see new native grasses, a sculptures, perennials and small plants -- and the memorial stones will go back they way they were originally, almost exactly."

Community support

Support for the 2008 original Parks Recreation and Stormwater Tax and its renewal in 2018 by city residents has been "paramount," Jones said.

"When you have funding to work with and people can see the fruits of what tax revenue can produce, it builds confidence."

Jones said she is pleased by the partnerships the department has built and maintains with Southeast Missouri State University, Old Town Cape, Arts Council and garden clubs, among others.

Jones once directed the Parks and Recreation Department in Osceola County, near Orlando, a much larger operation than Cape Girardeau's.

"(Cape Parks & Rec) is the smallest agency I've ever worked for," she said. "Career advancement was not my objective."

Jones believes her more than 30 years of experience in Florida has paid off in her work in Cape Girardeau.

"I think I was able to being a new perspective, a long-term planning approach to park improvements," she said.

"When you get right down to it, it's all about people."

What's next?

"My husband and I will live here and in Florida. We'll travel (and) we love the outdoors," Jones said. "I love my career as much now, if not more, than 40 years ago. It'll be sad to leave and it's bittersweet, but it's time for more adventure."