The Oxford Park Commission announced Monday that Seth Gaines has been appointed by the board to be the next executive director.

Gaines will assume duties as executive director Oct. 12, and will continue the OPC’s mission of providing professionally designed, comprehensive recreational and leisure programs and services.

Gaines said the first thing he plans to do after assuming his duties is “a lot of listening.”

“I want to evaluate everything that we are doing,” Gaines said. “I’m looking forward to just sitting down with the staff at OPC and the activity center and saying ‘Give me a broad stroke of the programming that’s going on,’ and getting their feel of it and what we need to offer more of.”

Gaines also plans to form close relationships with neighborhood associations, school principals and OPC partners to see how their children can be better served.

Gaines joins OPC with experience, having spent the last 11 years with the city of Tupelo. During his time with the city, he has been the sports director, director of athletics and the director of sports development for the Convention and Visitors Bureau. He has been in charge of programming adult sports, weekend sports and recruiting events to the city that increase tourism and bring business to area hotels and restaurants.

Gaines, a native of Myrtle, is married and has two children, an 11-year-old and 16-month-old son. Gaines and his wife love to travel, particularly to major league baseball stadiums around the country.

“I have always thought that Oxford would be one of the communities that I would be interested in joining, and then this opportunity came,” Gaines said. “I am very excited about it.”

Seth Gaines is pictured above.