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The family whose company built the Mountain Home Community Center unveiled two bronze plaques Thursday morning honoring Mayor Hillrey Adams and the Mountain Home City Council. Adams had no idea they were coming.
One plaque recognizes everyone who had a hand in the project. The second carries the mayor’s likeness and honors him alone.
Will Gregory read it aloud.
“In honor of Mayor Hillrey Adams, whose vision, leadership and tireless efforts made the Mountain Home Community Center a reality.”
The moment closed a circle between the two men. At the center’s ribbon cutting, Adams surprised Gregory with the keys to the city. On Thursday, Gregory surprised him back.
The Gregory Company has worked in the Twin Lakes area since 1971. Banks Gregory, who opened the ceremony with a video, said the event was a chance to thank the officials who backed the project.
“Partnering with people who believe and invest in this community’s success are some of the best parts of what we do,” he said. “Our mayor, Hillrey Adams, and our city council are the best example of that.”
Will Gregory, Chance Gregory and Lori Gregory also spoke, along with Parks and Recreation Director Daniel Baxley. Adams spoke last.
Baxley opened by thanking the mayor and council for handing him the job.
“Four years ago, the mayor and the council trusted me to come up here and build this facility,” he said.
He said one of the running debates during planning was over what the building should be called. Some wanted it framed as a water park. Adams insisted on community center.
“We’ve had a big discussion on community center versus water park,” Baxley said. “Some others didn’t always understand why he was so adamant it had to be community center.”
Baxley said the reason becomes obvious to anyone working in the building. Staff see the full range of people coming through the doors every day.
“One of the things that we see is we have something for everybody in this facility,” he said.
He said one moment this summer captured the point.
“One of the neat things that I saw this week for the first time is we have grandkids teaching water aerobics for the grandparents,” Baxley said. “That’s community. That’s what we like to see.”
Baxley then shared operating numbers the mayor had not yet seen.
The center has signed up 7,009 primary members. That figure does not include spouses and children, which brings total access to just over 13,000 people. The city had hoped for 1,000 members before the doors opened and 2,500 by the end of the year.
Day passes have also outrun projections. The center has sold 14,782 day passes, generating $113,994. Concessions brought in $24,585 over two months, and the Denbro ice cream counter is averaging 110 cones a day.
The building has hosted 90 rentals to date with 78 more booked through the end of the year. Swim lessons have grown into the second largest recreation program the department runs.
City Attorney Roger Morgan was in court Thursday and sent a video message in his place.
“Let me apologize for not being there in person today,” Morgan said. “I did not want to miss the opportunity to talk about what I think is a miracle for the city of Mountain Home.”
Morgan compared the center to Bull Shoals Dam, which marked its 75th anniversary this year. He said the dam shaped the schools, businesses and retiree population of the Twin Lakes area.
“I believe the impact that it has on the Twin Lakes area will be felt for decades,” he said of the center.
Morgan thanked the women who taught aerobics classes and campaigned door to door for the sales tax that funded construction. He also credited the voters who backed it.
“We had voters that were more than willing to step out there and not vote their pocketbook, but instead vote what was best for the citizens and future of Mountain Home,” Morgan said.
He praised the current council, pointing to the downtown entertainment district and to water and sewer improvements that opened the door for the city to grow.
“I’ve dealt with 40 years of city councils in Mountain Home, and I don’t believe that we’ve had a better one, or one that has accomplished more for the city,” Morgan said. “Historically, people will look back on the council that we’ve had for the last six to eight years and realize what an impact it has had on this city.”
Adams was the first mayor in Arkansas to recognize a city could form an entertainment district, Morgan said. He recalled Adams stopping by his office early one morning and telling him to read up on it.
Morgan said he has known Adams since the early 1990s, when Adams moved to Mountain Home to become postmaster. He joked that Adams banned dogs from the post office within days of arriving, leaving dogs roaming the parking lot for a week.
Adams lived in Jonesboro when he first ran for mayor, and Morgan said some voters questioned his ties to the city then.
“I don’t think anyone, after all that the mayor has done for the city of Mountain Home, could ever question his loyalty or where his priorities lie,” Morgan said.
Morgan said he has worked with eight or nine mayors and named two he holds in particular regard, both of whom Adams helped put in office. Adams was instrumental in getting Ed Gilbert appointed interim mayor, and Gilbert helped bring the veterans center to the west side of the square. Adams later helped elect Joe Dillard, who took over after a mayor resigned mid-term and who Morgan said restored integrity and work ethic to the office.
Morgan said Adams understood from the start that the project was about more than swimming, and that the same thinking drove his push on the rest of the park system. He said the parks improvements are as much a part of the Adams legacy as the center itself.
“Hillrey put improvements that, in my mind, make this park system rival any in the state and greatly exceed what a town of 12 to 14,000 people should expect,” he said.
He closed by tying the project to the people who built the area.
“Lots of places have a couple of lakes and a river and they don’t prosper,” Morgan said. “Mountain Home has prospered because of forefathers who put the work in, and thank goodness we’ve got someone leading us like Hillrey Adams that puts the work in to ensure prosperity for the coming generations.”
Morgan also had a word for the builder.
“If I want to build a commercial project, I want to have Will Gregory running it and I want to have Hillrey Adams as the person pushing it,” he said.
Chance Gregory said Adams was a constant presence on the job site.
“I’d say he was here at least once a day, on average, if not more,” Gregory said. “We spent a couple concrete pours one, two in the morning out here.”
Chance Gregory also told the crowd about a back procedure that took him off the job for a stretch this year.
“I had a back realignment scheduled. I’m not really sure who scheduled it,” he said. “I kept asking to call Daniel and Alison. I wanted to discuss the pool temperatures.”
His wife would not let him make the call, he said.
“Thankfully, my wife didn’t let me call, but I kind of wish she would, and I’d like to know what I had to say,” Gregory said. “I don’t remember any of it.”
Will Gregory grew emotional as he addressed the mayor directly. He said that of all the projects his company has taken on over the years, the time the two of them spent getting this one done stood apart.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said.
He also teased Adams about finding him in the park on Sunday mornings picking up trash, telling him he was not very good at it.
Adams paused to collect himself before he stepped up to speak.
He said the building cost him sleep, describing nights he woke with a detail he could not let go of.
“I’d wake up with something on my mind. We got to do something about that hallway tomorrow,” the mayor said. “You just couldn’t get this place off your mind at all.”
He recalled interviewing construction firms at City Hall with the architects and engineers present. The first two arrived in three-piece suits, he said.
When an engineer asked Will Gregory who would be running the job, Adams said, Gregory answered that he would.
“I remember that guy listened and said, does anybody work for you besides you?” Adams said.
What means the most now, the mayor said, is walking through the finished building.
“Anywhere I go, and I can do it today, we can go out right now, somebody will stop me,” Adams said. He said he sees longtime residents walking the track every day.
Lori Gregory closed the family’s remarks.
“This has been like herding cats,” she said. “Not one man in our family really likes to speak.”
She said she has lived in Mountain Home her whole life.
“This place is phenomenal. I am so very proud that it is here in this community, and it’s because the city council and because Hillrey would not quit,” she said. “This man doesn’t quit. He finishes what he starts, and if he tells you he’s going to do something, you can bet it will get done.”
