Ownership – there are generally two modern usages of the term. One is a legal or technical definition. Possessing the registration of a vehicle in one’s name establishes ownership of that vehicle.
The other definition is much more overarching. It describes a sense of personal responsibility for a complex undertaking – think, the Quitman City Pool and Susan Rogers.
Rogers sat down with the Monitor to talk all things pool in the week before the swimming season opened. The interview took her away from cleaning the bottom of the pool, which tells one much about Rogers and her sense of ownership.
“It’s my pool,” she stated. That comment is not boastful, but rather a recognition that a complex endeavor, such as running a public pool, requires an all-encompassing sense of responsibility. In this case, a responsibility for safety, water quality, sanitation, physical repair, scheduling, provisioning, and operations.
The Quitman pool is a large trapezoid: 86 feet in length, 52 feet across the shallow end and 43 feet across the deep end. Capacity is 155,000 gallons of water. For a small-town public pool, it is a large pool. The water is drawn from the Quitman city water system which takes its input from Lake Fork.
According to Rogers, the pool was purchased by the City of Quitman in the year 2000 from the Quitman Youth Foundation. While the Youth Foundation still owns the park in which the pool is sited, the city owns and operates the pool.
While retired and residing in northern Wood County, Rogers received a call from her nephew back in 2013 that the city was looking for someone to manage the pool. She was uniquely qualified.
“I was educated and worked as a surgical pathologist,” Rogers explained. She also had maintained a large private pool for many years. “Being widowed, I needed something that I could throw my time and energy into,” she added.
At first blush, expertise in surgical pathology may not seem to be a perfect fit for a pool manager, but in actuality, it serves quite well. Rogers explained that monitoring the pathology of a healing body shares many commonalities with maintaining the health of a large, contained body of water.
To Rogers, water quality is the number one priority. A guided tour of the filter station at the northwest corner of the pool informed that maintaining that water quality is a complex undertaking. “We use a combination of chlorine, muriatic acid and CO2 to maintain the water quality,” Rogers explained.
A master control system (called a prominent controller) monitors the water quality 24/7. At any time, Rogers can access the panel from her phone and check water quality, including alkalinity levels, as well as temperature. “It also alerts me should any parameter be out of specification,” she said.
Three large filters also operate continuously, cleaning the sand from the adjacent ballfields which is inevitably blown into the pool, day-by-day. In passing, Rogers admitted that she often makes repairs herself, and every year she winterizes the whole filter system.
Cleaning out the ballfield sand was exactly the task she was occupied with that morning. “The automatic creeper which we normally use to clean the bottom has failed. So, we are cleaning it by hand with a long aquatic vacuum called a hammerhead,” Rogers reported. A replacement vacuum creeper costs $4,000, she added.
Pools are expensive, and they are not civic money-makers. “The pool is something that the city maintains as a service to the community,” Rogers explained. She noted with great pleasure that many of her first customers now have families of their own who frequent the pool.
She reached back to a bulletin board behind her desk and removed a photo, “These two, Emily and Hope, were the first two lifeguards I hired back in 2013.” There was a clear expression of pride on her face.
Lifeguards are integral for the pool’s success. Rogers noted that with the strong support of the city manager, they have been able to increase the hourly wage of the lifeguards to make it a competitive wage. “I have been able to hire nine lifeguards this year,” she stated, “each of course will have, or have to attain, a lifeguard certification.”
Rogers regularly fields questions from other pool managers about various operational matters. She has also developed a long list of contacts.
Through these contacts she has been able to arrange for certification of the Quitman Fire Chief as a lifeguard instructor. This will not only save the city thousands of dollars, but will make Quitman a certifying agent for lifeguards in East Texas – and a source of income.
The payoff in all this work, is, of course, seeing the kids enjoy the pool. Rogers related an antidote. “I was at DQ when a family walked in and a little boy – who I recognized from the pool – stopped me and said, ‘I know you’ and then added ‘but I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.’ Usually, at the pool, I am always in my swimsuit.”
The pool opened last Saturday with the traditional Kiwanis Day -- free swimming from noon to 2:00 and lunch courtesy of the Kiwanis. The season runs through August 6. The fee has been simplified: $5.00 per person allows use of the pool from noon to 6 pm. Children under three are free.
The pool is reserved for private parties from 6:15 – 8:15 pm daily. Many groups make use of this time for birthdays, family reunions, church groups, clubs, little league teams and others. On occasion special nights are planned, such as a movie night, although the fee to show a movie in public costs the pool $360 for the license.
Private swimming lessons are held in the mornings throughout the summer.
A volleyball net was recently added for the shallow end and is enjoyed by the youngsters. Rogers also added aeration fountains to cool the water in the oppressive summer heat.
While not presently in the budget, Rogers noted that on her wish-list would be installation of a cantilevered canopy along the western side of the pool. Such a canopy would provide prized shade from the July sun.
One will notice a host of signs with rules and regulations posted at the pool. “They are not just requirements of the State of Texas,” Rogers advised, “but each of those rules is critical in keeping the pool open for the whole community, and I follow the rules,” she stated.
The Quitman Pool is evidence of community. Long-time civic leader Bill Simpkins related that the present pool was the result of years-long efforts by many people who simply refused to let the pool perish. The smiles it brings to children today are the result of those efforts. It is a legacy.
Contrary to the annual rumors of the pool’s demise, the Quitman City Pool is up and operational and waiting for young and old alike to come and cool off. One more recent improvement is the ability to pay with a card for entrance and concessions.