Faithful readers of Knox TN Today get the lowdown every Friday on taxpayers’ dollars at work from Knox County Communications Director Mike Donila’s weekly column. More often than not, somewhere in that column Donila will reference the Parks and Recreation Department’s “one man machine” Frank Christian.
By year’s end, Christian will be wrapping up his 26th year with the department. At 62, the word “retirement” isn’t too far off in the future, but it’s not really part of his vocabulary.
“I don’t really think about that. If I’m able to come to work and be productive, I’m going to be here,” Christian said. “I see a lot of people retire and then just go work someplace else. I’m happy at work. I really like going out every day and doing my job.”
While he appreciates Donila’s accolades, Christian is quick to give credit to all the crew members in the Parks and Rec Department as well as Engineering and Public Works.
“We have a great bunch of people working here. Some people think all we ever do is go out and mow. There’s so much more than that. Everything you have to do to take care of a house, we do in 80 locations,” he said, referencing the County’s expansive network of public parks and greenways.
While “crew leader of grounds maintenance” is his official title, most days Christian finds himself working on his own.
“I’m in charge of me,” he said. “I may have my day planned out to do certain things, but I end up doing anything and everything that might need done, joining another crew if they’re short-handed, whatever. And weather can change your plans real quick.”
Christian has lived in South Knoxville since 1976, when his family moved here from where he grew up in Arlington, Virginia. His mother was raised in South Knox County near Seymour, where her father owned and operated a mill. She went to work for the Department of the Navy in Washington D.C. and met Christian’s father, a U.S. Marine from a West Virginia coal mining family.
“It was a great place to grow up,” he said. “All the things that people plan vacations to go see, those were our regular field trips from school: the Capitol, the White House, all the monuments, the Smithsonian. It was wonderful.”
The family relocated back to his mother’s roots just as Christian was starting his senior year in high school. As he already had most of the credits he needed to graduate, he decided to take his General Educational Development test and get on to working. He spent two years with Rural Metro followed by five with the Rescue Squad. He then spent a decade as a local and over-the-road truck driver. When he decided he was tired of life on the road, his commercial driver’s license came in handy when applying for a job with the county.
“Not everybody has a CDL,” Christian said. “They need people who can drive some of these trucks,”
While he is full of jokes and laughs with ease, one thing he takes very seriously is the citizen’s dime, and one thing he is weary of is continual vandalism of public property.
“People pay taxes to pay people to take care of county property,” Christian said. “They expect the lights to work, they expect the trash to be picked up, they expect things to be clean and to work. It would be nice if people would stop vandalizing and trashing our parks. But, I like making stuff better, contributing. If you like your job, it’s not a burden to come to it.”
Beth Kinnane is the community news editor for KnoxTNToday.com