City of College Station Blog

By Colin Killian, Public Communications Director

In this week’s episode of “What’s Up, College Station?” Grace Hallowell and Parks and Recreation Marketing Coordinator Trey Reeves discuss Recreation Connection, the new and improved biannual guide to the City’s park facilities and recreation programs. You can pick up the guide at any park facility or access it online at cstx.gov/parksguide.

The “What’s Up, College Station?” podcast is available weekly via Podbean, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon/Audible. Please subscribe, rate, and recommend!

If you have a suggestion for a future topic or interview, email me at ckillian@cstx.gov. 

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TRANSCRIPT

Grace Hallowell:

What’s up College Station? I’m Grace Hallowell, and today I’m joined by Trey Reeves from our Parks and Recreation department. We are here to talk about the new and improved Parks and Recreation guide, Recreation Connection. So let’s kind of kick things off and talk about what’s going on in the next few months.

Trey Reeves:

So the guide is out, Recreation Connection. You can find it online, cstx.gov/parksguide. And then we have hard copies if that’s your thing, like always at all of our parks facilities and kind of scattered around town. And yeah, it’s the same great information that people have come to love in just a new and improved format. So we’re really excited about. Our PubCom team did a fantastic job getting that out and getting it designed and we’re really thrilled with it. We hope people enjoy it too. But yeah, it has all the information on our programs, sports leagues, camps, and all the fun special events that you know and love from now through July.

Grace Hallowell:

So let’s kind of talk about what things people can find in the guide.

Trey Reeves:

Like I said, it’s all of our fun things that you know and love from College Station Parks and Recreation. Starting, I guess as we’re recording this in late February with late February, we have our star party that’s coming up at the Nature Center. That’s always a big hit. We have in March coming up some big fun special events as well, Monarch March celebrating Butterflies. We have World Migratory Bird Day coming up in May. And then of course our Starlight Music series too, which we have dates in, but we are waiting to release the artists for just a little bit longer.

Grace Hallowell:

So stay tuned for that. I know that’s always the… The highlight of my summer is Starlight among other things. And the Lick Creek Park in the dark is one that I know a lot of people look forward to. And there’s two dates that we have for that.

Trey Reeves:

Lick Creek Park in the dark coming up in March and April. We have two dates for you. So if one’s already booked or one doesn’t work for you, hopefully the other one does. But that’s always a huge hit. We love seeing the families out at Lick Creek or individuals too. If you just love camping and want to get out of the city for a little bit one night, it’s a great option for you.

Grace Hallowell:

So for these programs and events, some of them are free but some of them require a membership for our residents or for non-residents. So what is the membership fee for participating in some of these programs?

Trey Reeves:

It kind of varies by program, but we do have a couple of specific memberships. So we have a senior membership that is an amazing deal. It’s a small monthly fee every month. It’s slightly higher for non-residents, but still a very, very manageable fee. And it gets you into hundreds of hours of programming for people 55 and up every single month. And then we also have an adult fitness pass that not a lot of people know about. It gets you into the fitness center at the Lincoln Recreation Center. It gets you into open gym basketball, open gym pickleball, Zumba classes, all kinds of fun things to keep your fitness goals up. So it’s cheaper than most gyms in town. I haven’t verified every gym but it’s a pretty good deal and hard to beat.

Grace Hallowell:

And it is open for everybody of every skill level as a lot of these programs are. So you don’t need to feel shy about not being able to keep up because there’s something for everybody.

Trey Reeves:

Absolutely. Yeah, we love priding ourselves in there being something for everybody. And I love how we set up the guide now. It’s broken down by here’s our youth programs, here’s our adult and teen programs, here’s our senior programs. So maybe if you’ve been only trying something at one recreation center, you can find out the things at our other recreation centers that pique your interest and maybe make some new friends along the way too.

Grace Hallowell:

So this is so much to cover today, so we can’t give out every single URL and information. So where can people find out all of the information on these?

Trey Reeves:

Yeah, cstx.gov/parksguide is where you can find the digital copy. And if you like a hard copy, you can come by and get one at our parks office or any of our parks facilities anytime we’re open.

Grace Hallowell:

And feel free to even just stop in to get a tour of the facility.

Trey Reeves:

Yeah, absolutely.

Grace Hallowell:

I know our staff, we love showing people around and there’s so many things that I know I mention on the show all the time. I’m still a newer resident and I’m learning new things about College Station almost every day. And especially the Gary Halter Nature Center is one of my favorites that I had no idea was here until I went there.

Trey Reeves:

I was actually just meeting with our nature center supervisor, Lloyd Brown this morning and just going over some of her schedule this spring, and tons of fun events. Every single weekend almost, they have wellness classes. They have like I mentioned earlier, the Monarch Mach Celebrations, the Bird Day celebrations to celebrate us being a bird city like she talked about on the show last week. So tons of fun things going on out there. And even if there’s nothing going on, just walking out the trails, picking a day where it’s pretty to ride your bike or bring your dog or whatever you want to do. It’s a great spot.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, and it is a spot for foodies as well with Food Truck Wednesday, starting up again soon. I know that’s always one of my favorites, to walk around the park and get a bite to eat or multiple bites from multiple different food trucks. So that starts up next week, correct?

Trey Reeves:

Food Truck Wednesday at Wolf Pen Creek, it’s going to be the second and fourth Wednesday starting next week, the 26th of February, all the way through May. So like you said, you can go out to Wolf Pen Creek, bring a blanket, bring a picnic basket, get a great bite to eat from our local food trucks and enjoy some fun yard games and just time outside.

Grace Hallowell:

All right. So yes, everything can be found at cstx.gov/parksguide. Trey, thank you so much for joining me today.

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