City's new assistant director jumps right into park action

Philip Cornelius finishes his first week as assistant Greencastle park director Friday afternoon with a stop outside the Emerald Palace at Robe-Ann Park.

Greencastle's new assistant park director apparently treads water pretty well.

Thrown into the deep end of the pool -- at least figuratively -- in his first week in the position, Philip Cornelius has managed to keep his head above water enough to make a smiling debut at the August Park Board meeting Thursday night.

"He's been on the job since Monday," Park Director Rod Weinschenk told the board in introducing his new No. 2 man. "We broke him in with the big party (dedication) at the splash park Monday night and followed that up with National Night Out on Tuesday."

After surviving two of the busiest days of the summer at Robe-Ann Park in his first two days on the job, Cornelius "has decided to stay on," Weinschenk joshed.

Cornelius, a 2014 graduate of Indiana State University with a degree in recreation and sports management and a concentration on youth leadership and non-profit management, succeeds Troy Scott in the park position. Scott left department at the end of April to pursue a career in the private sector.

Weinschenk said at the time he wanted to use the opportunity to restructure the park assistant's position, making that person in charge of the aquatics center overall as well as being responsible for all the programs within the department.

But with only the weekend left on the 2014 pool calendar, Cornelius won't really take over aquatics center duties until next spring, he said Friday

When he does, he will be in charge of operations and maintenance, staffing and fundraising.

The Decatur Central High School graduate, who grew up in Camby, has some experience running a pool and organizing park programs despite his youth and recent college graduation.

In fact, just last Friday Cornelius completed a 600-hour internship with the Danville Parks and Recreation Department that fulfilled his ISU degree requirements.

He also has two summers of experience working for the Boy Scouts of America at Camp Krietenstein in southeastern Clay County on his resume. He was aquatics director at the camp two years ago and served as Camp K programs director in 2013.

That versatility plays right into Park Director Weinschenk plan of putting Cornelius to work all over the local parks and recreation landscape.

"We'll probably even be putting Phil on a mower next week," Weinschenk said Thursday night, noting that the Park Department has lost all its summer seasonal maintenance people to the back-to-school routine as activity begins to wane at the park.

"It's been busy and I'm tired," Weinschenk told the Park Board, "but it's a good kind of tired."