Melissa McCoy
- Graduated: ECU, 1997
- Degree: B.S. in Biology
- 16 years with Kinston-Lenoir County Department of Parks and Recreation
DEEP RUN — In 14 years, Melissa McCoy could be working with ocelots in Costa Rica.
And why not, as Sterling Archer exclaimed on the FX show “Archer,” “Look at his little spots! Look at his tufted ears!”
But that’s in the future.
“Maybe one day, I can, but right now it’s not an option,” McCoy said at last week’s Special Olympics Spring Games at South Lenoir High School.
The ECU graduate is in her 16th year with the Kinston-Lenoir County Parks and Recreation Department, taking a job with the agency two months after leaving college. She grew up in Lenoir County and attended North Lenoir High School.
“That was a choice. I live across from the house where I grew up,” McCoy said. “My mom’s still there — I lost my dad in ’08. I’m a very family-oriented person, so I chose to stay in Hugo.”
Growing up on the tobacco farm gave McCoy a kind of rooted sense of place, as work tending the crops and fields went year-’round. Staying in the area brings more of a feeling of ease.
“It probably makes you a little bit more comfortable, because a lot of people that you grew up with, going to elementary school and high school with — you see them around town because Kinston’s a pretty small place,” McCoy said. “Some of us moved away — most didn’t.”
As a recreation programs supervisor, she wears a number of hats.
“I started out being director of the Nature Center for the first three years, then I switched over to programs, which entails me being the local coordinator for Special Olympics for Lenoir County — I do senior citizen programs, I do summer camps and I do quite a bit of accounting in the office as well,” McCoy said.
She got a biology degree because of her love of animals, and has a sizeable number of dogs and cats on her property.
But there is an inkling of change down the road. She’ll be able to retire after 30 years as a county employee by the time she’s 53 years old, which leaves a sizeable amount of life to be lived.
Hence the talk of jungle cats and Costa Rica.
“I would like to go live in a hut on a beach somewhere really pretty sometimes,” McCoy said. “You know, where you can walk to your local market and buy your food — I would be all about that.”
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wes.wolfe@kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.