Everett handed key to city by Mayor Rickord

By BOB SHRALUKA

WZBD.com

“I want to thank the community for letting me work with your kids. God put me where I was meant to be,” Nan Everett told a large crowd attending Tuesday night’s Decatur City Council meeting.

Everett, who stepped down last Friday after a 50-year career with the city-county parks department, was honored by Mayor Dan Rickord and council. She received a Key to the City (see photo) and a copy of a resolution praising her efforts.

Everett retired as leisure director and through the years was a swim instructor and lifeguard. The resolution points out that she taught thousands of people in this community “how to swim, feel confident in water and instilled life-saving skills and knowledge to others…”

“Her whole life has been dedicated to working with kids in our community, “ Rickord said before reading the resolution aloud. “It’s amazing what she’s done and how many lives she has touched.”

“There’s no way to know how many lives she’s saved,” said the mayor who remembered receiving instruction from Everett in a class he took as a youngster.

Everett joined the department as a teenager, hiring on as a seasonal employee under Mary Nilsen in July of 1978, then went full-time in September of 1979.

Speaking to the crowded council chambers in City Hall, Everett said of retiring, “It’s been a bittersweet moment. It was fun coming to work every day and working with kids.”

In addition to swim instruction, Nan “served as an energetic and enthusiastic gymnastics and exercise instructor for all levels and participants … sharing her love of fitness and health with generations of the community,” the resolution notes.

Her “spirit of inclusivity, dedicated service to others and love of community is described by her co-workers as the heart and soul” of the parks department,” the resolution says. It adds that after “working tirelessly in multiple capacities simultaneously within (the department) throughout her career will leave a void that will most likely require the efforts of several people to fill…”