CHINA GROVE — Don Bringle retired in early December after over 20 years at the head of Rowan County Parks and Recreation, a time which has seen the opening of Woodleaf Park and a multitude of renovations to other parks throughout the county.

During that time, Bringle also served the county as director of facilities and fleet management, which saw him oversee the purchase and reopening of the Salisbury Mall as the Rowan Community Center, formerly the West End Plaza.

Bringle joined the county government in 2003 as the manager of Dan Nicholas Park, and was then named only the second Parks and Recreation Director following the retirement of long-time director Jim Foltz in 2009.

Foltz provided a tough act to follow, having been the driving force behind much of the development of both Dan Nicholas, Sloan and Dunn’s Mountain parks along with many of the other facilities around the county.

“When I came on board, we were developing Woodleaf Park. Mr. Foltz was still there then, but we were working and trying to get all of that in place. I sort of had to carry the torch and continue to upgrade our facilities, because, in government, two areas that are not mandated by state or federal law to be funded are parks and recreation and libraries,” said Bringle.

Bringle’s original career was with the China Grove Textile Mills, where he served as the vice president of manufacturing until the position was eliminated when Sara Lee bought the company. He then went on to work with Walmart, commuting from his home in China Grove to work at a distribution center in Shelby.

“Because of the family, my wife working here, one child in high school, one child in college, I did not want to look at relocation, so I filled out at application with Rowan County Parks and rec as the manager of Dan Nicholas Park and was hired through that process,” said Bringle, who describes himself as a “product of the area.”

During his time as manager of Dan Nicholas Park and then director of the county’s park system, Bringle oversaw countless projects, including the creation of the Rowan Wild nature facility at Dan Nicholas park and the opening of Woodleaf Park, which was built on the grounds of the former Woodleaf Elementary School.

“One of my goals at all of our parks when I first came on board, looking at (Americans with Disabilities Act) accessibility, we had a lot of paths in the parks and we had to provide reasonable (amounts of) accessible pathways. Each year, I was able to get some funding in our budget to where we could do piecemeal a little bit of sidewalk, a little bit more, to basically where we’ve gotten to a lot of the sidewalks in our parks now that are accessible from the parking lot to some of the playground areas and the amenities that the parks offer,” said Bringle.

Bringle also took the time to highlight the recreation half of his job title that he felt was overlooked, including the department’s work with the Senior Games, the Special Olympics and therapeutic recreation initiatives that were undertaken.

“When we talk about parks and recreation, oftentimes, we forget about those two aspects that we cover. With the Senior Games, that’s now ages 50 to 100+ from that standpoint, and we’ve had groups recently who finished the Senior Games that went to the state and got gold medals, silver medals, bronze medals and now they’re able to go to the national finals. With our therapeutic rec, we deal with all of the different age groups there and provide programming and go out to the rest homes and do a lot of different things,” said Bringle.

He also noted that at one point, Rowan County fielded the largest Senior Games participation numbers in the state for a single-county program. While those numbers dropped due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bringle said that the county is working to rebuild the program.

All in all, however, Bringle attributed the success and sustainability of the Rowan County Parks and Recreation to all of the people that worked in it, not just him.

“It’s not what I’ve done, but it’s what our supervisors and our employees, both full-time and part-time, have done. They’re the people to be congratulated. They’re the people who meet the public day in and day out and make our parks look good, make our county look good,” said Bringle.

Bringle represented one of the last of the “old guard” in and around the parks and recreation department, with Gem Mining Supervisor Alan Fullam, Park Maintenance Supervisor Jim Byrd, Special Events Director Andrea Baucom, Sloan Park Supervisor Rocky Kane and Ellis Park Supervisor Craige Farmer all having retired recently.

Bringle also pointed to the recent retirement of Animal Services Director Bob Pendergrass, who ran Rowan Wild, as contributing to the loss of the county’s “depth of knowledge” in the area. Bringle said that he believed the county was in “good hands” with the people who had been appointed to fill those openings, and said that just as he was available to new Parks and Recreation Director Nick Aceves for advice, many of the retirees were available to their successors as well.

Bringle’s title was expanded in 2015 to include director of facilities, which placed him in charge of the recently purchased Salisbury Mall, now known as the Rowan Community Center. The role also put him in charge of the upkeep of the detention center, the justice center, the agricultural building, the transportation building and any other facilities throughout the county.

Several years later, Bringle said he was also assigned the responsibilities of fleet management as well, putting him in charge of overseeing the entirety of the county-owned vehicles.

“I’ve enjoyed my tenure of 21 years, working the parks and recreation crew and working with our facilities crew as well, I don’t want to sell them short from that standpoint. We’ve made a lot of progress in a lot of areas,” said Bringle.

After running with all of those different responsibilities and dealing with recent heart problems, Bringle said that he is currently working on learning how to slow down after retiring in early December.

“I’m looking forward to retirement, doing some things with the wife and grandchildren and getting caught up on a few projects around (the house),” said Bringle.

Bringle has also served on the China Grove Town Council for decades, including 12 years as the mayor, and said he anticipates continuing to serve the town for the foreseeable future. He said that he also wants to continue to be active in his local church community.

One way that Bringle said he wants to continue serving the Rowan County community was as a member of the Juvenile Crime Prevention Council, which works to “prevent juveniles who are at risk from becoming delinquent,” according to the state statute creating local councils, through community-based strategies and programs. Bringle has served on the council as the local parks representative, but said that he wants to transition to a public representative in the future.