It’s a wet, hot day at the Siloam Springs Family Aquatic Center. Scores of children and adults are cooling off by swimming in the pool or cruising down a water slide.
It’s a chaotic scene, with people moving about in all directions, above and below the water. But everyone is safe under the watchful eyes of the pool’s lifeguards.
However, the same can’t be said for many public pools and beaches across the U.S. According to the National Lifeguard Association, about a third of the country’s 309,000 public pools closed or opened sporadically last year due to a shortage of properly trained lifeguards, and the situation remains the same this year.
Despite this national shortage, Siloam Springs Parks and Recreation Coordinator Charli Crandell said they have plenty of qualified guards this summer.
“No, we have actually more applicants than we can hire,” she said.
She said the aquatic center has a large recruiting base. Siloam Springs has the only public pool near their area, so people from Lincoln or Colcord, Oklahoma, end up applying for jobs there. Plus, a unique partnership between the city and Gentry’s McKee Foods allows for complimentary certifications for potential guards.
Crandell said she facilitated this sponsorship because Red Cross lifeguard certifications, which are required for employment, can be pretty costly.
“So whenever I came into this role, I put myself in the shoes of a teenager,” she said. “And I thought, if I wanted to work at the pool but I had to pay $375 and I might not even make $375 all summer long, I'm not sure that I would want to pay for a certification that I might not even make that money back. So I got in touch with some different organizations, and we worked out some contracts, and now we have a scholarship that I'm very grateful for, and that pays for every one of our lifeguards' certificates.”
Lifeguards who work at the Siloam Springs Family Aquatic Center also tend to come back for the next season. Crandell said that out of the roughly 35 guards on staff each summer, half of them return the following year. And then friends of those guards usually fill in the remaining positions.
“We've grown a place where the culture is good enough that people are referring their friends, and that's another major contributor as to how we've been able to beat the national odds,” Crandell said.
“Our teams are so close-knit,” lifeguard Haley Defoe said. “We do stuff all the time, outside of the pool. When you have that good community, it makes it so much easier to function because you know you can rely on each other, and you have that connection.”
Hayley Defoe is a lifeguard working her seventh summer at the pool. She said the responsibility of her position is not lost on her. But it wasn't until a patron suffered a spinal injury halfway through her first summer that the full weight of her role truly sank in.
“That’s, like, a big deal,” she said. “That’s like, 911 possible broken bones, like your back, your neck.”
Jack Travis: “Can you walk me through what that was like for you?”
“Yeah, it was really kind of nerve-wracking. But when you have all this training that you really rely on, you get past that initial shock of like, this is something that's really happening. And you think back to, okay, what did I learn? What are the basics that need to get covered right now to ensure the safety of this person? And you've got so many people around you that support you too in that time, you know, former lifeguards, your managers, that are also there to kind of walk you through that in the steps and talk you through it.”
Lifeguarding is a unique job. The position is usually filled by someone in their late teens and early twenties. For many, this is their first job, and it comes with a large burden. These young people literally have a swimming pool full of lives in their hands. That takes a level head and the ability to take charge at a moment’s notice.
Thirteen-year-old Aden Sneary said he likes that newfound responsibility.
“It was a little bit of pressure the first year, but since it's my second year, I think it's pretty fun,” Sneary said.
Sneary volunteers at the Rogers Aquatic Center through the junior lifeguard program, which allows 11- to 14-year-olds the chance to see what the job is like.
Junior guards undergo training similar to that of a lifeguard, but they never get on the stand. Although Sneary is not saving lives, he said he still has many important duties.
“We just kind of help out a little bit, handing people tubes, helping kids on auto hauler over there, getting down the slide safely, and just make it a better environment,” he said.
The Rogers Aquatic Center isn’t feeling that national shortage either. Aquatic shift supervisor Leanne Jacobson said the junior guard program has helped keep the staff list full.
“That’s one of our best recruiting things,” Jacobson said. “You know, we have kids who've grown up being junior lifeguards, and when they turn 15, they become lifeguards and then continue to work.”
Lifeguards at the Rogers Aquatic Center operate in a shirt color-based hierarchy. Naturally, junior guards are at the bottom. After them come the red-shirt guards, who sit on the lifeguard stands and watch the water. Then there are blue shirts, who facilitate breaks. Next are yellow shirts, who manage each attraction and the lifeguards assigned to them. Finally, black shirts make sure everything runs smoothly.
Jacobson said this progression allows for an easier transition into leadership.
Black shirt guard Gaven Acosta is a prime example. He said he first visited the pool as a young kid, and now he helps run the entire operation.
“Just as a kid, it was a very amazing place to come to, and I remember I came here with my family multiple times,” Acosta said. “And then whenever I started working here as a junior lifeguard, at first, it was like seeing the other side, almost, you know, working here as a junior guard. And then as I became a lifeguard, it was, you know, kind of maturing in that, seeing what this place is like.”
He went from junior guard to red, then blue, yellow, and finally black.
“I'm kind of like the second in command, second to Leanne,” he said. “But yeah, it's taught me a lot about management and leadership, and, you know, making sure stuff gets done. And that’s a very valuable thing that I've learned, and I've even brought it over to academics. I'm out of high school now, but when I was in high school, I was the drum major, which is kind of the president of the band, and so I had to bring leadership into that, too. And so having both those, being the drum major and also being a manager of the attraction here, really helped teach me leadership.”
Summer officially begins today, June 20, on the equinox. As temperatures continue to climb, northwest Arkansans can cool off and swim with peace of mind in these public pools, knowing that a lifeguard is on duty.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline by reporters. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. The authoritative record of KUAF programming is the audio record.
