Working for 10 years is an accomplishment, volunteering for a decade is just plain admirable.

That’s just what a volunteer has done in working to help combine the city and county recreation efforts and get things moving.

That volunteer, Tate Hobdy, deserves our praise as he announces plans to resign from the Natchez-Adams County Recreation Commission soon to make way for new leadership.

To suggest that such a volunteer position is easy would be a gross mischaracterization.

Hobdy and others on the recreation commission have managed to somehow do the impossible — get the county and city governments to not only work together, but also to cede a little power in the process.

Navigating through the tremendous egos that sometimes wind up in elected office is a full time job on its own.

But to have to juggle those egos while also trying to move things forward is difficult to fathom.

While the changes in recreation have not happened at the speed at which we would have liked, the changes have occurred and that’s definitely a step in the right direction.

That step likely would not have occurred if Hobdy had not had a patient and steady hand to help guide the process.

We wish Hobdy well, hope he returns to public service soon and hope a new recreation commission leader can be found to keep the momentum moving.