Lupton aims for a fourth term on park district board

(This story originally appeared in the Hesperia Star Tuesday, October 3, 2006)

Richard Lupton has served 12 years on the Hesperia Recreation and Park District governing board and he aims to make it 16.

“I’m not going to treat [reelection] as a lock,” Lupton said Thursday. “We have a lot more we want to accomplish,” including additional soccer fields at the district’s park on Maple Avenue and baseball diamonds at Hesperia Community Park.

“To do the job right, you have to put in the time.”

Lupton first moved to Hesperia in 1976, where he worked as a firefighter before arthritis forced him into an early retirement. As an outlet for what he describes as his desire to be involved in public service, he turned to the park district.

“I just wanted to be involved in the community. I just wanted to do more. Don’t have the political ambition to go up the ladder” for other offices. “I like what I’m doing.”

(Two of Lupton’s fellow park board members—Richard Hall and Thurston “Smitty” Smith—are running for a seat on the Hesperia City Council this year.)

Four years ago, the park board eliminated the district’s in-house security team, the ranger program, and has since relied upon park district employees and members of the Citizens On Patrol volunteer police force to keep the peace at park facilities.

The district also carefully screens its own employees.

“Everyone who works with a child is background-checked,” Lupton said. “A predator isn’t a predator until he’s caught. But we do our best.”

And the ranger program may not be gone for good.

“We’re trying to do a new and improved program,” he said. “It’ll be the first of the year before it’s going.

“We’re trying to do a lot of things to help a lot of people.”

Beau Yarbrough can be reached at 956-7108 or at beau@hesperiastar.com.