H.R. Phillips

BIOGRAPHY OF
H.R. PHILLIPS

H.R. was born September 14, 1926, near Oswego, Kansas, to Marchie and Homer Phillips, Sr. H.R. was the 5th child, the 3rd boy in a family of 7 boys and 3 girls. He was raised on a farm and attended rural grade school until the 6th grade. His family then moved to the edge of Oswego, Kansas, where he completed the 8th grade and one year of high school. H.R. completed high school at Labette County Community High School, where he majored in auto mechanics. After high school in 1945, he entered the Air Force, attending cadet pre-flight school at Kessler AFB, Biloxi, Mississippi. H.R. chose to drop flight school after V E and V J Day and stayed in the regular Air Force. He was assigned to the 9th Air Force as a mechanic at Wiesbaden, Germany, the Air Force headquarters. H.R. chose not to extend the Air Force tour to return home and enter college.

He was the first of his family to receive his college degree. H.R. served as college class president his sophomore year and lettered in three sports. As a sophomore he was picked as an all Kansas State Junior College guard in basketball (1948-49 season).

H.R.'s first job after graduation in June 1951 was Recreation Director for National Gypsum Company plant in Parsons, Kansas. He provided sports and recreation programs for 5,000 employees and played on the Gypsum AAU basketball team with players from several colleges including CU, Kansas State, Pittsburgh State, including player Dean Smith from KU & North Carolina.

In March 1955, H.R. married Neva Jean Lamb. They moved to Logan County, Sterling, Colorado, where he was the County Recreation Director. In 1962 the family moved to Ft. Collins, Colorado, as the first Director of Recreation and in 1966 became the city's first Parks & Recreation Director. He retired in 1988 after twenty-six years in Ft. Collins.

During H.R.' s tenure with the city, it was the beginning of heavy growth and after hiring a group of professional people there was a push to develop new facilities and new programs which consisted of new parks, sports fields, including a swimming pool, a recreation center and other facilities. H.R. worked hard with friend, Mike DiTullio, Assistant City Manager, getting a parkland fund ordinance passed that still is in effect today, bringing in funds to purchase and develop new parks. He was a strong supporter of developing the city's trail and open space program during the 70's and 80's and served on a support group pushing for the Colorado Lottery. Fort Collins received the National Gold Medal award in 1986 for outstanding Parks & Recreation for cities under 100,000 people. When H.R. took over the Parks & Recreation Dept. there were only four parks and one 9 hole golf course in Fort Collins. . When he retired in 1988 there were over thirty parks developed, two new 18 hole golf courses, plus land purchased for open space and other undeveloped parks.

There are many more areas of accomplishment contributed to H.R.'s work, however, most citizens of the 60's, ?O's & 80's know well of his works and the citizens of Ft. Collins today are benefiting from these projects.

H.R. enjoyed lots of sports besides football, basketball and track. He enjoyed snow skiing, canoeing, white water rafting, horse pact trips, camping and all kinds of fishing and hunting. He especially enjoyed anything to do with the mountains. As he grew older he took up horseshoe pitching, he learned from his friend Bob Olsheski. He loved to play racquetball, tennis and golf, but gave up the more physical activities (baseball, softball, basketball) as he grew older. H.R. kept very active with golf, horseshoes, fishing and enjoyed living in the country.