Page 69 - South Mississippi Living - December, 2019

restore the former Annex. Tackling a room at a time, the FIC slowly grew in size.
“Mr. Rodolfich would tell us what he wanted, and then Weber had
to figure it out,” Anglin said. She added jokingly, “The worst words we dreaded hearing from Mr. Rodolfich were ‘I have an idea.’ We would all just go, ‘not another one.’”
“His 15 second idea would turn into 15 days of work for us,” Parker agreed.
One room had already been renovated into the Excel by 5 library. The superintendent asked Parker to convert the space into
a Wetlands Discovery Room that was co-sponsored by Chevron and
Mississippi Power.
“We did a diagram on a piece of
paper and Weber did everything else. We wanted kids to actually get in a boat because even though we live on
a peninsula, a majority of our children never get near the water,” Rodolfich said.
“We got two pontoon boats that Mr. Rodolfich set in the middle of the room and said, ‘now I want you to build around this,’” Parker said.
From that simple beginning, the FIC grew into what it is today in
its 10th year where children can
play on a pirate ship, go grocery shopping on Pascagoula Main Street, participate in STEM activities, rescue wildlife as a veterinarian, see the
stars in a planetarium and even fly
a helicopter in a flight simulator. There’s also plenty to do outdoors with a playground and miniature golf course.
“I had the ability as the superintendent to put these things
in place, but I had to have great resources for it to happen,” Rodolfich said.
In October of 2019, Rodolfich
was selected as Mississippi’s Superintendent of the Year, partly based on his work at the FIC that resulted in an outstanding outreach to children and parents.
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BEFORE
BEFORE
BEFORE
AFTER
AFTER
AFTER
FIC Visionaries Doug Belk, Todd Trenchard, Kelli McCorkle, Weber Parker, Jackie Elly and Wayne Rodol ch.
Wayne and his daughter Jonna Rodol ch.