JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

Art Price works out at the Christiansburg Recreation Center. "Sometimes I almost feel guilty because I only work 40 hours a week," he said. "Back in the day, 60 hours a week was nothing. It took a long time to learn how to delegate."

JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

Art Price, director of the Christiansburg Recreation Department, jokes with his friends at the Christiansburg Recreation Center. Much of Art Price's day is spent talking to people who visit the recreation center, trying to find out what their needs and interests are.

CHRISTIANSBURG -- Art Price had a shock of dark hair and a ton of energy when he joined the fledgling Christiansburg Parks and Recreation Department on April 11, 1983, with the important-sounding title of supervisor of athletics.

The department, headed by the late Mort Gilmore, had only five employees at the time and was in a renovated Victorian house on College Street. The department budget was less than $200,000.

Twenty-five years later, Price has a head full of gray hair, leads a department with 16 full-time and seven permanent part-time employees and manages a budget of more than $2 million.

He recently turned 50. But he still has a little energy left.

He became director of the Christiansburg Recreation Department in 1987, succeeding Gilmore, who was the department's second director. Jerry Gwaltney, now Danville's city manager, holds the distinction of being the first recreation leader. Gwaltney, however, stayed only a year in the position.

Price grew up in a Christiansburg that didn't have so many recreational opportunities. In the days before Xbox, the recreation that was available was cherished by scores of boys with jaws full of bubble gum.

Back in the 1970s, when Price was an adolescent, the Kiwanis Club offered the town's youth sports programs. Price -- like most boys -- took advantage of them, playing sandlot football, baseball and basketball.

Girls' activities then were limited to sandlot cheerleading.

"I was looking at a picture of myself in seventh grade playing sandlot football," Price said recently. "My coach was Mike Barber."

Barber is now a Christiansburg town councilman.

And Mayor Richard Ballengee -- who was once Price's school principal -- often umpired the baseball games where Price passed summers at first base.

"I faced Mr. Ballengee's discipline more than once in my life, and it was deserving," Price admitted. "It's pretty neat to still be around the people you admired and respected as a child."

When Price was named recreation director, he was 29. His working day involved mowing, weeding and dragging ball fields, taking registration for sports programs, issuing receipts for payments, scheduling recreation events and on and on.

His days were long. He had a wife, Donita, and a little girl named Hope at home. Donita was expecting twin girls and was ordered to bed rest.

Price wasn't so easygoing then.

Not long after being put in charge of the town's recreation program, he spotted black smoke billowing above Kiwanis Park, then the only place for ballgames.

"It had come one of those gully-washer downpours," Price recalled. "Some guys right out of high school had decided to pour gas on the fields, set it on fire and dry the puddles up before their softball game."

Needless to say, Price wasn't happy.

"I thought, 'What would happen if Mr. Lemley drove by?' " he recalled, referring to the seemingly superhuman John Lemley, the notorious town manager who had the reputation of showing up when he was least expected.

Price confronted the youths but soon realized that there was a time when he might had done something equally idiotic.

"I'm going home and thank the good Lord that I have one daughter and two on the way so I don't have to deal with sons," he told the boys after giving them a good scolding.

"I've never one time in my life regretted not having a son," he says now. "I guess I've had a lot of sons around here."

Price's twin daughters, Maddie and Mary, are 20-year-old Radford University students. Mary works part time at the recreation center.

While Price is now in charge of several town parks, as well as the busy Christiansburg Recreation Center (built in 1997) and the Harkrader Sports Complex (which opened last year), Kiwanis Park is still dear to him. Although the Kiwanis Club still owns the park, the town maintains it and has youth baseball and softball games there.

"Kiwanis Park was the center of a kid's universe back then," he said of his own childhood. "Thank goodness for all those years the Kiwanis Club was there. The Kiwanis Club's what started the rec department."

Walter Price isn't related to the recreation department director but was on the original commission formed in 1971 to help get a department started in Christiansburg. Now 88, he's still serving on the commission, an eight-member advisory group appointed by the town council. The group meets monthly and includes a high school representative, a senior citizen, a member of the Kiwanis Club and others with interest in steering the department to meet residents' needs.

The elder Price said seeing the recreation center open was a dream come true for him. He had three athletic sons who played sports at Christiansburg Institute before desegregation. He appreciates the fact that the town now offers activities for everyone, no matter their age, gender or color.

"I was so proud of our building. You just see droves of people in and out every day. That means a lot," he said.

Art Price said the center has 12,700 active members and serves the needs of all ages -- from programs for senior citizens to a "Diaper Gym" session for mothers and toddlers.

"Last month, around 11,000 people came in and used the building," he said. "When this building was built, it made all the world of difference. If you had told me so many people would use it, I would have thought it would never happen."

Price said he and his staff have had to expand the center's weight and cardio rooms to keep up with demand. They even utilized a storage room to come up with extra space.

"And we're still crowded, especially at night. You could almost build another new recreation center of this size and fill it," he said.

Barber credits Price for being instrumental in expanding recreation programs in the town.

"He's a dedicated person and he's dedicated to Christiansburg," the councilman said of his former sandlot football player. As the council's representative on the recreation commission, Barber said working with Price is easy.

"If there's something going on that I don't like, I can talk to Art," he said. "I've never asked him to do anything he didn't respond to."

Price said he runs the department with the same loose reins his supervisors, Town Manager Lance Terpenny and Assistant Town Manager Barry Helms, give him.

"Pretty much everybody who works here is from Christiansburg or started working here and stayed here," he noted. "The town of Christiansburg is such a wonderful place to be."

Price said he believes it's only going to get better, too.

Now the town is building a new aquatic center that should be open by next year and is helping in efforts to expand the Huckleberry Trail to the recreation center.

Anything that enhances recreational opportunities for people in Christiansburg is great, Price said.

Although he no longer mows fields and won't have the responsibility of managing the aquatic center once it's open, he still stays busy. Much of his day is spent talking to people who visit the recreation center, trying to find out what their needs and interests are. Some days, he said, he never leaves. He works out during his lunch hour.

"Sometimes I almost feel guilty because I only work 40 hours a week," he said. "Back in the day, 60 hours a week was nothing. It took a long time to learn how to delegate."

"I think now I've got good at the art of delegating," he added, raising his voice so that Chuck Muncy, Price's supervisor of outdoor sports facilities and parks, could hear from his neighboring office.

Muncy, who started working with Price back in 1983 as a scorekeeper while he was attending high school, looked up from the paperwork at his desk.

"I would agree," he said.