The Superior Express -

Ready or not, The Nelson Municipal Pool will open this Saturday. Employees have been painting benches and touching up the paint around the facility, as well as cleaning and organizing to get ready for the season.

We have a few new faces this year, Kasey Vaughn will be joining the crew as the assistant manager, along with two first-year lifeguards, Caden Culbertson and Raylene Miller. I, Teraesa Bruce, will manage again this year, and Rocky Miller will be acting as pool operator when Kasey and I are not available to work. Returning lifeguards are Jessica Sole, Carson Vaughn and Roy Davidson.

We have faced a few challenges already this season. The worst being the big tree to the west of the pool dropping endless seed pods into the pool and on the pool decks. Our skimmer pump finally died. It was more than 10 years old, and we have been babying it along the last couple years. We have been doing our best to skim the pool, top and bottom by hand. We use the skimmers to vacuum the pool, so there is a lot of yuck on the bottom. Our new skimmer pump is scheduled to be here this week, and I cannot wait to be able to vacuum.

Our lifeguards have been working on the skills needed for their certification class, one of which is swimming the twelve laps without stopping. It may not sound like much, but it is the part of the certification process that challenges most of our guards, especially in the cool water. We have also been working on stroke development. When they are practicing the proper strokes, they exert less energy when swimming, which makes the laps go by with less effort. The certification class for our new guards is on Friday, and I am confident they will do well.

I am looking forward to swimming lessons this year. I love teaching my little fish! The past couple of years I haven't be able to be as present during swimming lessons as I would have like to have been and am thankful that this year I will be able to. I spent most of my life being scared of the water, due to an accident when I was young. In my late twenty's I was looking for a second job, and the only place that was hiring was our local indoor pool. So I grit my teeth and applied, the laps were the hardest part for me, since I was not a strong swimmer.

Raylene Miller, Rocky Miller, Caden Culbertson and Carson Vaughn work at cleaning and organizing the office at the Nelson Municipal pool.

Long story short, I passed. Because of my fear of the water, teaching children to swim and love the water has been rewarding. I have to admit that when I first started, swimming lessons made me very nervous. How was I going to teach youngsters to swim, when I felt that I could not? So I asked a friend and fellow pool manager, Janet Jones for help. With her lessons plans, guidance and reassurance, I gained the confidence to teach. I love to see the children go from not wanting to leave the side of the pool, to being comfortable going down the slide, and off the board.

As stressful as running the pool can be, the children make it worth every grey hair. Every year I ask myself "why am I still doing this?" Every year, the smiles and laughter remind me. I love my little fishies! That's the only reason I need. I can't wait to see you all at the pool.