New Peabody city coordinator enjoying the challenge of promoting community

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN BRENDA CONYERS
“This last month has been a ball. I am building relationships with business people and meeting all kinds of new people. I love it,” said Coletta Ricketts, the new Peabody community coordinator.


Ricketts, who was born in Newton and has lived in several places across the United States, lives with her husband in Wichita and is exploring the possibility of moving to the Peabody area.


She hopes to bring a fresh perspective to Peabody, which she said has many special things to offer the area.


“I have no encumbrances from the past,” Ricketts said. “I can take a fresh look at what Peabody needs to do to get things going again.”


Before coming to Peabody, Ricketts and her husband worked together in several areas of business. She said they work as “partners” and have been from the start, 31 years ago.


“We pastored a church and had businesses of our own, the most recent having had 10 years owning a pool store,” she said. “We developed it and built it until it became known all over the state.”


She said the time came for a change, and she tried “the corporate world for a while, but after working on your own so long, it just wasn’t for me.”


She attended Friends University, where she earned a bachelor of arts degree with emphasis on history.


When asked what she hopes to bring to Peabody, Ricketts said, “A caring spirit to support the community and to re-light the spark again.


“The vision I have is to be a peacemaker and to try to bring unity between the people and the businesses.”


Ricketts said she is impressed and excited about the history found in Peabody.


“History is so important,” she said, “and there is so much history here. And the people. We have to remember without the people there would be no history.”


Ricketts said she was coming on board with a community that had a solid foundation on which to build.


“I don’t want us to forget why we have the events and do the things we do,” she said. “Otherwise we will all burn out.”


Ricketts said helping Peabody grow and develop is a full-time job as she coordinates the Historical Main Street Committee, the Peabody Economic Development committee, the city council and the Retailer Association.


“I think 99.5 percent of the people I have met have accepted a new coordinator,” she said. “I haven’t felt any resistance at all. The people here are very open and flexible.”


She said when she made application for this position she told them she was “an optimist through and through.”


“I don’t allow any negatives,” Ricketts said. “I don’t like them, so don’t tell me ‘we can’t.'”


Her husband, John, is an author, and together they have written books on the care of swimming pools and instructional books.


He is the president of the Kansas Sunflower MENSA organization.


“Yes, that’s the ‘brainy’ one,” she said, laughing. “He keeps trying to get me to take the test, but I just haven’t had the time. Maybe someday.”


Ricketts said she is excited about the December schedule.


“We have all kinds of things going on each Saturday before Christmas.”


She said the community was doing a “Step Back in Time” Christmas, with retailers dressing in a time period and special events in the morning at 10 a.m. and noon, and in the afternoon at 2 and 4 p.m..


“There will be music groups walking through the businesses in the morning, and a children’s reading hour in the afternoon,” she said. “We will have pony rides, hot cider, and lots and lots of fun.”


In addition, she said, there will be a number of drawings for baskets of items donated by the retailers and a raffle for a large Christmas wreath.


“The retailers have really come through for us,” she said, “and not just the ones downtown, but retailers on the outskirts of town as well.”


Ricketts said she enjoys her new position and the promise of the new year ahead.


“Like I said, I am an optimist. I am ready to rock ‘n’ roll!”

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