Uniontown to honor Misiak
Like many kids who grew up in Uniontown in the 1950s and ’60s, Ken Misiak spent his summers playing basketball at the city’s playgrounds. As he got older, Misiak worked summers in the parks for the city’s recreation department when he was majoring in physical education at Bethany College in West Virginia, and it was then when he met Buzz Albright – the man he would eventually replace as head of the department.
Thirty-four years later, Misiak has decided retire so he can start spending summers with his family. He said a pending knee operation also played a part in his decision.
He is not retiring from Geibel Catholic High School, where he is the varsity basketball coach, athletic director and a teacher.
Uniontown City Council and the mayor will honor Misiak for his years of service to the city by presenting him a plaque at the council meeting Tuesday, when they will accept his retirement and appoint Harold Bell, a city firefighter, to the post.
“I personally want to thank him for doing a wonderful job,” Mayor Jim Sileo said. “It’s sad to see a gentleman like him go. He’s very dedicated and very dependable. He’s going to be missed. I have a lot of confidence in Mr. Bell. I know he’s going to do a good job.”
On Friday, Misiak, 66, recalled how the playgrounds were once hubs for the city’s youth.
“In high school, we spent our days in the parks. It was nothing for a hundred kids to be on the playgrounds back then. That was our place to go. There were no malls, no fast food chains,” Misiak said.
“I’ve worked for the recreation department probably since 1956. I started as a playground director when I was in college. Then I took over for Buzz Albright in 1969. He’s the one that originally started recreation in the city, probably in the ’40s. I grew up playing on Lincoln View playground. That’s where I met Buzz.”
During the height of the playgrounds’ popularity, which lasted from the 1950s into the ’70s, Misiak said there were activities for everybody from pre-school children to “golden-agers.”
There were schools in many neighborhoods and playgrounds at every school. The schools helped pay for maintaining the facilities and the activities, and had good relationships with the city, he said.
Some of the activities were basketball, baseball and tennis clinics and field trips.
In the 1970s, there were youth centers at LaFayette and Ben Franklin schools. Misiak said the centers drew a hundred or more kids on Saturday evenings and there was always adult supervision.
They would play basketball, table games or other activities arranged by the department and the schools.
As the neighborhood schools closed one-by-one, the playgrounds went with them and the city decided to maintain the bigger parks and playgrounds, which are is use today, including Bailey Park, where the city maintains two fields and operates numerous baseball leagues for youths from ages 6 to 17.
Society also changed and fewer kids seemed to develop other interests, and the lack of interest led the decline of the parks and playgrounds, he said.
While the city carried out needed repairs and improvements to the facilities last year, Misiak said the playgrounds and Bailey Park are needed now more then ever to give kids a healthy alternative to drugs. He said he is confident that the recreation program has helped keep make some kids productive members of society.
“As a recreation director, if playgrounds were ever needed, it’s now,” Misiak said. “If we can keep one or two kids on the straight path, we’ve accomplished our goal. I hope the city will continue to value recreation and expand it in the future.”
He said he would like to see the city open a large recreation center with activities for all city youth.
Planning activities that will attract kids is a recreation director’s biggest challenge, because “slides and swings only go so far.”
Misiak said people might think the director’s job ends after the baseball season, but planning activities for an upcoming summer begins right after the previous summer ends.
Though he led and oversaw the department, Misiak is quick to share credit with the playground managers and others he worked with over the years.
“I had good people working for me, which made my job a little easier,” Misiak said, noting that some of his summer workers have gone on to become doctors and other professionals.
“I’m going to miss them as much as they’ll miss me.”