Staff & Council

Iberville Parish Residents,

It is an honor and privilege to serve the Iberville community as the Director of Iberville Parks and Recreation District. I have a deep, lifelong passion dedicated to working in educational athletics. My love for sports began right here in Iberville Parish, at Plaquemine High School where I graduated with a football scholarship that allowed me to play and graduate from Nicholls State University with a Bachelor of Science in Education. In my career, I have a combined 25 years of teaching and coaching experience, along with 14 years of Administrative experience as an Athletic Director. During that time, I served as head football coach at St. John High School and Brusly High School. The dedication to educational athletics only deepened throughout my time at IPRD as I continued to volunteer as a coach for 10 years.

To say it has been a privilege to work as your Director alongside the IPRD staff this past year and a half is an understatement. As 2020 and 2021 have been an obstacle for us all to overcome, our staff fought through the challenges to only pave way for a bigger and brighter future. Through these tough times, we still soared to new heights by increasing enrollment, coordinating new facilities, along managing and adding new programs to our department.

In the past year, IPRD has partnered with the Island Country Club to add a bi-annual golf program. We have efficiently streamlined facility management and program scheduling by moving programs to the Carl Grant Civic Center. Our staff also continues to partner with the Iberville Parish School Board to hold Camp 360 for kids during the month of June. Looking to the future, 2022 will be a year of excitement for the Iberville Parish community. As our staff continues ongoing improvements to fencing, maintenance, and clean-up at our local parks, we will also welcome a new state-of-the-art park, maintenance building, and an athletic facility that is being developed at Belleview Park. Bayou Pigeon will also welcome a new park to their community that is ground-breaking in December of 2021. A new pavilion and cookout area is also under construction at the old Seymourville School. Our staff is also making efforts to reach out to the East and North communities to extend our programs across our large, rural parish. These plans will be implemented in 2022.

All of these efforts would not be possible with the support of the Iberville Parish Council at the direction of our Parish President. The turnaround of these additions and improvements in this period of time would not be possible without their help.

The only component missing for reaching our future potential is one thing: the citizens of Iberville Parish. A mandatory key to success in all educational athletics is the community and parents’ involvement. Why miss out on the opportunity to help with the development of another Brian Mitchell or Davon Godchaux in our community? Most importantly, you can help steer the lives of the children in Iberville, so that they can return the favor one day to your children or grandchildren. To put it plainly, our staff receives a number of complaints throughout the year that we work hard to improve and find solutions to around the clock. Parents, we are asking for help in return. Please consider offering a solution while bringing a complaint to our office. Consider donating your experience, efforts, and free time to our teams by coaching, managing activities, or handing out water, so that we may give our staff the capacity to continue to improve our programs.

Get involved. Be Iberville proud. Together, we can continue to improve IPRD for the children in our community.

From the Heart,
Erik J. Willis
Executive Director, berville Parks & Recreation