Above: Jeff Owens
Jeff Owens, who served as Batesville’s Parks Director for 14 years, died Friday morning, June 6, 2025. He was interviewed at his home three weeks ago for this article.
By Andrea Bruner, White River Now
Fourteen years ago, the city of Batesville passed a tax that would fund improvements to the parks system and build a new community center.
Jeff Owens had just started his new job as the city parks director, and he knew there was plenty of work to go around, but with each item crossed of his to-do list, he was ready to move on to the next.
On Friday, Owens moved on to his final project, and now friends, co-workers and loved ones are preparing to say goodbye to the man who was at the helm of the many projects but always preferred to be out of the spotlight.
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Jeff Owens started his role with the city of Batesville on June 30, 2011, nine months before the citywide special election was held. It was the third campaign to get a tax passed that would fund not only the community center but also renovations/expansion at the Terry Sims Complex as well as a new soccer complex/horse arena.
The idea for the tax began in 2004 with Dr. Bill Beller’s dream of building a new complex, to be funded by a special tax he put forth to voters. In 2011, there was another election, but yet both initiatives failed.
The third campaign would be different. Strategies were implemented to get people to the ballot box in March 2012, but as Owens told Mayor Rick Elumbaugh before the election, “Win, lose or draw, the morning after the election I’m going to get up and do my best for Batesville.”
Owens recalled the first “official” thing he did when he came to Batesville – tear down a playground over by what is now The River restaurant.
“The swings were less than five feet from the road, and it had asphalt underneath. It did not meet safety playground standards at all,” he said. “There was also a dirt road right over where the garbage truck would drive out through the park and pick up the trash, to the point it had a dirt path down the middle of the park. So we put an end to that really quick.”
At the field used by the high school girls’ softball team, the fence was being held up by rope, and the concession stand at the complex had burned. “They were doing concessions out of a recently acquired Cowboy’s BBQ trailer. So, we replaced the fence, built a concession stand, and put the lights up – those were the first three things we did.”
But city leaders had a vision that went beyond cosmetic upgrades. They wanted a beacon to bring in tourism, a venue to develop opportunities, a location for programs for all ages – and a team leader to tie everything together.
After the two failed attempts at a parks and recreation tax, Owens said some were afraid to put it back on the ballot. People commented they didn’t want to build something new, only to see it worn down or not taken care of properly. But as his crews started painting and fixing things up, citizens began to trust that such a facility would be maintained.
“You can go to the community center now, it was opened in 2017, and it’s been pretty well taken care of.”
Owens was quick to praise the city’s maintenance staff and their high standards.
“There are so many days that I’ve gone and noticed something and put it on my to-do list, then gone back to talk to Steve (Nichols, who supervises the custodians there) at the staff meeting, and said we need to go look at something and he’s like, ‘Oh, I fixed that Friday.’ He has that same work ethic and standard that he would not let something stay broken or looking bad.”
Owens said his brother, Mark, and nephew, Michael, moved to Batesville and now serve the city as firefighters, and about two years ago his parents moved next door. Owens said he had always intended to take care of them, but the role ended up being reversed when he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer that had spread into his stomach.
Last summer, Owens rode in the Arkansas Graveler, a five-day cycling adventure across the state, and said he was struggling to eat during that time. For at least two years, he’d had some pains he chalked up to acid reflux; after all he was getting older. As an endurance athlete, he was used to aches and pains.
“You get comfortable being uncomfortable. You got to bed at night, and your knees hurt, but you also ran 16 miles that day.”
When he couldn’t swallow anymore, his doctor ordered an endoscopy. “Sept. 12, 2024, three days before my birthday, it was like happy birthday, you have cancer.”
Suddenly, all the healthy eating and exercise weren’t enough, especially when his grandmother and three uncles all died of cancer and his mother survived a bout with breast cancer.
“If we had caught mine six months earlier, I may not be on hospice. Maybe it’d be a different outcome. Maybe not, but it would’ve been a better chance.”
Cancer doesn’t play favorites, he said. “It doesn’t care what your last name is, it doesn’t care how much money you got in the bank, it doesn’t care how you exercise. If it’s gonna show up, it’s gonna show up.”
Owens said he has a firm belief in God and death does not scare him. “I truly believe I’ve got a place waiting for me in Heaven, so it doesn’t bother me at all.”
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The last 14 years, however, Batesville was home.
He said already knew a few people here and had mountain biked with Ben Treat and Lackey Moody. He even helped write the grant that got the first section of the Greenway Trail built from the old Mickey Mouse pool to Myers Street, well before 2011.
“I had relationships in this town before I moved here.” That circle of friends grew and grew.
He said he didn’t get to serve on the fire department at Jonesboro, where firefighters were full-time only, but he jumped at the chance to become a part-time firefighter at Batesville and to work as part of a team. Owens said he learned a lot from the more tenured guys.
“When I went into a fire with Bill (Johnson), he would slow me down and tell me to observe things. He was teaching me during those live fires. I appreciated that so much. I gained knowledge from it, and it made me a better fireman,” Owens said.
He sees the enthusiasm in the younger generation and even said that he’d get to a fire but there would be six guys already there. “I couldn’t drive fast enough to beat them. My role changed to a support guy instead of attack guy, but my brain still wants to be the front-attack guy.”
When he had to hang up his helmet, he said it was hard because when the fire pager went off – the instinct was still there, too, to jump up and head out.
Owens said he’d always been something of an adrenaline junkie. He was a rock climber and raced mountain bikes, but the older he got the harder those became. “There’s nothing like running up to a building, and you’re about to kick the front door in. I’d take three long, deep breaths to get my heart rate down and go to work – kick that front door into a building that’s fully engulfed.”
He also served 10 years on the Independence County Sheriff’s Department dive team. He said he always loved scuba diving and exploring, but it wasn’t about being fun when he had to go into murky water, unable to see two feet in front of his face, while looking for a drowning victim. But he knew the importance of providing closure to a family, so he kept going.
Owens also volunteered to work on the high rope rescue team, a specialized team that rescues people stranded in hard-to-reach areas.
“There’s your adrenaline fix. You’re helping people and filling the need at the same time.
“Cancer took all that away from me.”
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In December, the local pickle ball group held a fundraiser for Owens. That was supposed to be a surprise, but one of the council members commented on it during an open meeting and Owens reads the notes from every meeting, so he knew it was coming.
“When they had that benefit tournament, people came out of the woodwork, and I tried to get up and speak. I’m not super emotional, but dear Lord. I couldn’t hold it together,” Owens said.
So the crews could paint in secret, the city employees turned off the cameras at the community center and told Owens it was an “IT issue” because even from home, he would keep an eye on things and tell the crews to mop a floor if it looked especially dirty, or whatever.
The night before the dedication, he said Elumbaugh called him and asked if he’d be free the following day, saying, “I need about 30 minutes of your time.”
“The words out of my mouth were, ‘Don’t you dare go putting my name on anything or making anything a memorial,’ because that’s not the reason I did it,” Owens said.
“I didn’t come to Batesville, didn’t show up to work any single day expecting a pat on the back. I just wanted to do my job. I was blessed with parents that had a great work ethic, and they passed it on to me. Do what you’re supposed to do to the best of your ability because that’s what you signed up for.”
“I didn’t always make everybody happy, but I did what I thought was in the best interest of the city and trying to make people’s lives better while trying to be a good steward of their tax dollars. That’s what I was supposed to be doing, not to get my name put on something … That’s not who I am.”
Owens also worked for 12 years with the Arkansas Weimaraner Rescue organization, helping foster and transfer dogs – and even joked that he was a “butler” to Weims of his own over the years, but that wasn’t for recognition, he said.
“When I come home at night and think I’ve accomplished something or done the right thing, I sleep like a baby.
“Don’t get me wrong, the negative stuff … bothered me. I got my butt chewed out for where I put the playground at the north complex. ‘It should have been over here so we could let our kids play while we watch the game.’ In my mind, I’m thinking you should be supervising your children. We live in a world where people get kidnapped. It’s not just for use when baseball is being played. You want it accessible so grandparents who are mobility challenged can still watch the kids from the car. There’s a reason for things, and it’s not to punish people. You play baseball three months out of the year, but we want it used 12 months out of the year.”
As the parks system started expanding with the new tax funds, there were plenty of ribbon cuttings and other opportunities to make speeches, but Owens said he would rather let others speak.
“I don’t give two rat’s rear ends about ribbon cuttings. I’d rather not even be there – let me go do something else. But people always said you need to celebrate your victories, but that’s not who I am,” he said. “I’m all about, ‘Let’s do it right the first time, make it as nice as possible, and go onto the next one and do it just as well.’”
But it was hard not to be proud of the city’s accomplishments as they started stacking up.
“When I first got here the four soccer fields we had, had gravel all in them and they were out there at the North Complex with the rodeo arena. People questioned why we needed a new soccer complex – we didn’t build it big enough! We’ve got 500 kids playing soccer this season, and when I was in Jonesboro, we had 650, and there’s 70,000 people in Jonesboro,” Owens said.
The community center is home base for the Batesville High School swim team, which has won five out of the last six state championships, Owens said, noting that kids are flourishing and winning championships, but that would not have been the case without the community’s support for these new facilities.
“When you see these kids graduate with four championships, and they take a picture with four big rings on their hand, I just love it. Most of these kids are going to be successful at whatever they do because they’ve done the two-a-days. They’re practicing at 6 o’clock in the morning and going back after school, and they’re making grades. They’ve got a work ethic.
“That’s why I was here – to create opportunities and to bring joy. I’m very passionate about parks and recreation. People don’t realize the life lessons you get from playing sports. Team-building is a big buzz word, but you have to learn teamwork. There is good to be learned from winning, and there’s good to be learned from losing.”
In addition, the community center hosts basketball tournaments practically year-round, and the largest tournament to date had about 170 teams.
“We took every gym in town,” from the elementary and high school campuses in town, to gyms in Southside and Cave City as well. “If you count on seven or eight kids a team, and research tells us each family averages $250 a weekend for food, hotels and gas – with even just 100 teams and eight kids, that’s $200,000 spent in our town alone. Our economic impact says four to seven times that money turns over; if you do five times that’s a million dollars that falls into our economy off of one basketball tournament.”
Another project that came about during Owens’ tenure was the splash pad by West Elementary.
“I was fortunate to be asked to serve on the board of Arkansas Parks and Tourism and get to rewrite the guidelines for the state on playgrounds. Our emphasis that year was the SCORP (State Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan) was removing boundaries and granting everyone access and the feeling of being included and removing barriers to going to parks,” he said.
“When you go to the splash pad, there are children from all walks of life playing together, and if that doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling, nothing will. You walk out there and there’s African-American, Hispanic, Caucasian, not to mention socio-economic (variables), people that don’t have anything and people that have got a lot more money than I’ve got. All the kids are playing together, and they don’t care about those things. Hopefully that carries into their lives as adults.
“That park over there has been ridiculously successful. You don’t know how excited I am to get this new park done (at Riverside Park),” he said. “That playground will allow a handicapped child to reach the highest point, and it’s going to be a three-story playground. A child that’s wheelchair bound can still reach the very top just like an able-bodied kid. It’s going to be the first one like it in the state of Arkansas. It was a brand-new product and the salesman I was working with had to call and get permission to show it to me.”
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After the results of his PET scan came in and it was apparent the immunotherapy wasn’t working, Owens had the opportunity to go on hospice.
“My fate is sealed. Once you go on hospice, there’s no treatment you can do anymore,” he said just a few days after the court dedication. The medication he received on hospice had made a huge difference in his comfort, he said, and he was looking forward to getting back to doing things he loved, like fishing with his dad.
“The Good Lord still has a reason I’m here. I pray for guidance every night. I’m male and hard-headed and sometimes you just have to beat me over the head with it, but I’m asking Him, ‘All right, what do I need to do?’ I’ve got a couple projects that I know I need to finish, that are still in the works, and I hope I get to see them done, but apparently, I still have some good to do. So, we’re just going to try to keep doing good every day.”
Owens said he had zero regrets moving to Batesville.
“I’ve got people from church, my family from work, my family here and my friend group – I am surrounded by a boatload of wonderful people,” he said. “I was talking to Lowen (Lermitte, who was named parks superintendent in April) about this other day; you never find out how much you mean to people until something tragic happens. …
A few days after the court dedication, he went to the Levitt Amp concert on Main Street, and so many people stopped to say hi or check on Owens’ health that he didn’t get to watch an entire song the whole night.
“My dad said I will never put you in front of us closer to the stage again, because they couldn’t watch the show last night because of how many people stopped by and talked to us,” he said with a smile. “That blows me away because that’s not who I am. I’ve always been the person that you can call me at any time, 2 o’clock in the morning if you need me, and I’ll be there.
“I shed tears when they did the court dedication. It’s been overwhelming, the amount of support. I’ve got a stack of cards in there I can’t bring myself to throw away. I’m thankful for every prayer, every card, all the support, but dadgum, I just didn’t know it. This town has been so good to me. I knew I loved Batesville before, but I love Batesville even more, and I didn’t think that was possible.
“It’s such a beautiful town with so many good people. It’s been amazing.”
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The last thing he wanted was to be remembered as a person looking for commendations or congratulations – he was just thankful for his team that helped him do his job, so he could move onto the next project. Even at the end, he continued to think about the city’s future.
“I’ve got two grants sitting open right now and I want to see them done,” he said.
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