Utah Recreation and Parks Association honors Springville parks staff with three statewide awards

Leanne Powell, executive director of the Utah Recreation and Parks Association, presented three statewide awards to Springville’s parks and recreation staff during the Springville City Council meeting.

Powell said the awards reflected the association’s three “pillars” — health and wellness, conservation and sustainability, and recreation for all — and cited Springville’s programs as examples. “The foundational element of what Parks and Recreation does is trying to create healthy communities,” Powell said.

The association gave the Stephen Georgia Carpenter Professional Development Scholarship to Tyler Wilkins to support travel to national training and knowledge-sharing with the state. Springville’s Memorial Park wiffle ball fields won Innovation of the Year for creating dedicated wiffle ball fields and hosting tournaments, and Cherry Ridge Bike Park received Outstanding Facility for connecting a previously challenging site to mountain-bike and hiking trails.

Council members and staff praised the parks team. “Stacy does such an incredible job,” a council member said, commending the parks manager and the department’s staff for sustained community engagement; the transcript identifies the speaker as the mayor (name not specified).

Powell told the council the association received about 120 nominations statewide and that a panel of past presidents reviewed nominations before selecting winners. She thanked the council for supporting the department’s work and said the awards recognize both staff and elected leaders who back parks and recreation funding and programming.

The presentation occupied part of the council meeting’s opening agenda; no formal council action was required or taken on the awards.