Frank Ori, a well-known and popular name in the community, was recently selected by the Utah Recreation and Parks Association to receive the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award.
Ori spent many years deeply dedicated to his career in recreation. His career started over 30 years ago as a senior at Carbon High School. There, Ori was a volunteer coach for a seventh grade Junior Jazz team. This experience was so enjoyable that he chose to continue pursuing recreation.
Following graduation, Ori attended the College of Eastern Utah (CEU), and after a year of volunteering at various youth and adult programs, he was hired as a program assistant for Carbon County Recreation in August of 1993.
Beginning, Ori officiated youth sports, though he quickly progressed to adult sports, which included the softball leagues, volleyball and mens’ basketball. A love for radio and journalism also led Ori to transfer to Mesa State College following CEU to finish his Bachelors degree in Mass Communications, with an emphasis in Broadcasting and a minor in Public Relations.
With this accomplishment, Ori returned to Carbon County and worked part-time for the recreation department once more while also doing sports radio for Carbon High.
Ori took his broadcasting a step further when he began officiating junior high and high school sports for schools throughout the state of Utah. During all of this, Ori still found time to work with one of his passions: baseball. He was an assistant baseball coach at the college.
In October of 2000, Ori received a promotion to the Assistant Director of Recreation for Carbon County. Though he took on this bigger role, he continued his broadcasting and officiating of high school sports until 2012. In 2011, he retired from coaching to work part-time as a morning radio host.
Then, in 2014, he was once again promoted, this time to Director of Recreation for Carbon County. A year later, in addition to the recreation department, Ori received additional responsibilities in managing the county fairgrounds, the event center and the North Springs Shooting Range.
However, Ori’s life changed on the morning of Dec. 3, 2017, when he suffered a massive stroke. The stroke caused him to lose use of his left hand and, in total, he underwent six brain surgeries.
Through this, Ori never lost his passion for work and returned to his job in Sept. of 2018. In March of 2021, Ori made the difficult decision to retire from Carbon County Recreation as a largely successful and involved career of nearly 30 years.
“I was very proud of what I accomplished in recreation, my radio career, coaching baseball at CEU and teaching fitness for life at the college for nearly 20 years,” Ori stated. “I’d like to thank the Utah Recreation and Park Association for awarding me with a Lifetime Achievement Award. My career is over professionally, but my life has just begun.”
Ori was presented with this award on March 15 in St. George at the annual Utah Recreation and Parks Association conference.