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skeptics couldn’t have been more wrong.
Now who is this Dr. Thompson? We learned this plain, witty, ‘old shoe’ is Director of Recreation in Fairfax; a retired naval officer and teaches majors in Recreation at both George Washington University and University of Virginia Extension. He has been on the Fairfax job for three years. He is a busy man, a dedicated man, and most practical minded.
In fact when he accepted the Fairfax position there was around $130,000 in the county’s budget for construction of a county Recreation Center. Promptly, “Rusty", as he is affectionately called, advised the authorities to “put it back in the general fund. . , it would but add to your problem. First of all an argument would develope as to where it would best be located. We still have a greater need for schools, streets, water, sewage disposal.”
Dr. Thompson advises any group with money to spend, to spend it for recreational leadership and to use existing facilities. What facilities do we have? We have school buildings, the same as they have in Fairfax. Also, we have fire halls and other good buildings not being used to their capacity. Certainly all such buildings must first be used for, and kept suitable for, their primary intent. But, with proper supervision these facilities could also serve a real purpose in providing recreation facilities, which are also necessary in the development of the well-rounded person. Fairfax’s problems were much the same as onjsi only bigger;-bigger in that they fiaW more people . . . more buildings to be handled on a programmed basis.
First, they learned what the people wanted. What type of recreation did the young people want, the older people, what was needed for the pre-teen age group? They began searching for leadership . . . people with know-how of various sorts. According to Dr. Thompson “all people go to hell during their
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