News BREC Announced as Finalist for the 2022 National Gold Medal Awards in Parks and RecreationBREC to compete for prestigious honor in the park and recreation industry

Baton Rouge, LouisianaMay 13, 2022

The American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration (AAPRA), in partnership with the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), is pleased to announce BREC as a finalist for the 2022 National Gold Medal Awards for Excellence in Park and Recreation Management. Musco Lighting, LLC is proud to continue sponsoring the Gold Medal Awards program as it has for more than 20 years.

Founded in 1965, the Gold Medal Awards program honors communities in the United States that demonstrate excellence in parks and recreation through long-range planning, resource management, volunteerism, environmental stewardship, program development, professional development and agency recognition. Applications are separated into six classes, with five classes based on population and one class for armed forces.

BREC is a finalist in the Class 1 Recreation category, which is the largest category and includes agencies serving communities with populations over 400,000. Previous winners in this category include Cleveland MetroParks (2021), MetroParks Toledo (2020), Fairfax County, Virginia (2019) Palm Beach County, Florida (2018) and Johnson County, Kansas (2017). BREC is a two-time national Gold Medal award winner (1991 and 1975) and a 17-time national finalist.

Agencies are judged on their ability to address the needs of those they serve through the collective energies of community members, staff members and elected officials. BREC joins three other finalists in their class that will compete for grand honors this year.

“This award recognizes the service BREC provided to the community over the past three years and I am incredibly proud to receive this honor at a time when residents have needed us the most, both at our parks and in their homes, during the COVID-19 pandemic which forced our agency to quickly change our service model multiple times since it began in 2020,” said BREC Superintendent Corey K. Wilson. “We know that parks are perfectly situated to address the underlying health conditions that caused the COVID-19 virus to hit Louisiana so hard and will continue working to provide residents and visitors great places to reap the physical and mental benefits that parks provide while navigating significant challenges created as a consequence of the pandemic,” said Wilson.  

A panel of five park and recreation professionals will review and judge all application materials. Judges are chosen for their considerable experience and knowledge in parks and recreation on both the local and national levels. 

This year’s finalists will compete for Grand Plaque Award honors this summer, and the six Grand Plaque recipients will be announced during the 2022 NRPA Conference, which will be held in Phoenix, Arizona. The presentation of both the Finalist and Grand Plaque recipients is being finalized and details will be forthcoming on the conference website.

For more information on the Gold Medal Awards, visit www.nrpa.org/goldmedal or www.aapra.org.

To see the information presented in the Gold Medal application, click here for BREC’s 2021 Annual Report