It’s another year of fun-filled events for the whole family at the three branches of the Ray Roberts Lake State Park system: the Greenbelt, Isle du Bois and Johnson Branch.
“This year is super special, obviously, because we are celebrating our 30th birthday at Ray Roberts Johnson Branch,” Park interpreter Celia Flores said.
That unit is expected to offer several fun events throughout the year, including yoga, forest bathing and archery.
“We have our state parks communications division coming out,” Flores said. “Our Buffalo Soldiers for our agency are coming out. Our Texas master naturalists and the travel center will be visiting us that weekend as well.”
The park has a sweet surprise in store for visitors soon.
“March 14th is Pi Day,” Flores said. “We'll have a couple of recipes going on and hopefully a couple more activities going on.”
Whether camp visitors are camping or just there for the day, all are welcome to join in the festivities.
The Carleton Fish Catch-AThon is back for another year, honoring a beloved park staff member.
“ Amanda Carlton was one of our office managers, and she loved the events that we host for the younger kids,” Flores said. “Unfortunately, when she passed away, that was when we were going to do our big first Catfish-athon. So, in honor of her and Eric Carlton, who is one of our law enforcement officers.”
The event will be held June 6, featuring raffles and prizes for children.
This is Flores’ first year as the new park interpreter for Johnson Branch, serving as a bridge between the park and visitors.
Flores is also responsible for organizing the majority of events at the park after filling the role once held by Izzy Mabry.
“Overall, the Ray Roberts team has been wonderful,” she said. “They are super resourceful. I can come to them if I have a questions. They allow me to kind of just dabble into whatever I'm passionate about. They’ve definitely pushed me to try new things all the time. For example, like Dutch oven cooking, I enjoy it, and they enjoy it for another reason—they get to try out all my new recipes.”
Flores also mentioned that since this year marks John’s Branch 30th anniversary, visitors should watch out for special events.
On April 11, the Greenfest on the Greenbelt will feature an annual run offering 1K, 5K and 10K distances.
Greenbelt Manager and Complex Natural Resource Specialist Matt Moore shared more details.
“It's put on by the Greenbelt Foundation, and they does a lot of fundraising for the park and so they'll use that that race to help put money back towards the park so we'll get donations from that … we'll use that for some upgrades for the park.” he said. “Generally, we do it in the spring. So that way, everyone can see all the new wildflowers all the bluebonnets and the Indian paintbrushes pop up.”
Joining forces with Flores is Isle du Bois Unit Park Interpreter Mindy Shumate for the Great Texas Birding Classic on May 2.
“It's a statewide bird-watching tournament where teams of all ages and skill levels compete to identify as many bird species as possible, so we like to compete amongst other parks,” Flores said. “And it is pretty exciting. Some of them are neck-and-neck.”
Participants can log their sightings through eBird.
The parks are also increasing accessibility by providing ADA equipment.
“We have the Grit wheelchair, which is like an assisted bicycle where you can kind of use your arms to pedal or they can push you around and that's really nice to have on trails,” Moore said. “There’s also the track chair, which is a powered mobilization device and it's on tracks, and a lot of parks have those so you can go around the trails and actually see the trails where maybe you couldn't do that in the past and then we also have beach wheelchairs that you can actually wheelchair out into the water.”
He added that while ADA equipment isn’t available at every park, calling ahead and requesting it can usually have it sent to a visitor’s preferred location at no cost.
“We want to get as many people out to the parks as we can, regardless of their ability to get outside or not, so there's quite a few new ADA pieces of equipment you can reserve through calling the state parks,” Moore said.
To learn more about upcoming events, visit tpwd.texas.gov/ calendar.
