As always, April has been a busy month for the Selma Parks and Recreation Department.

Often those that oversee the department — from interim director Lebo Jones to those who work on the fields after a storm comes through — are in the background and don’t get a lot of recognition for the work they’ve done. That’s the way they want it to be, but it’s important to remember the hours many put in to make sure Selma’s athletic events go on smoothly.

In the wake of longtime director Elton Reece’s passing, the department has done a tremendous job of keeping the city’s events on track. This month Mother Nature has made that difficult task even tougher than it already is.

Last week every single youth baseball and softball game was cancelled, creating a big scheduling hiccup just days into the season. The department has been working hard behind the scenes to ensure that many of those games, if not all, get rescheduled and are played before the season ends.

The Alabama Independent School Association track and field championships were also last week and went on through Thursday’s rain. The AISA and Morgan Academy, as well as the recreation department, did a remarkable job keeping the meet on track.

Unfortunately, rain will always be a problem. Forecasts call for rain Friday night into Saturday morning, meaning games scheduled for Saturday may be affected.

After a night of rain, officials with the recreation department usually go out to the fields at the Dallas County Sportsplex at the break of dawn to see if they can get enough water off the fields to make them playable. When the decision to cancel games is made, it’s never done without a lot of time and consideration put into it.

The department should be commended for the job its done over the last month as it pushed through difficult times and storm after storm.