Lessons From the Farm
- jake5514
- Mar 14
- 4 min read
Susie Sigo Flickner, a longtime town council member, credits the Town of Remington’s accomplishments—including its ongoing work to build an expanded, inclusive Remington Community Park—to teamwork and a community-first work ethic.
This year marks the 25th year of service on the Remington Town Council for Susie Sigo Flickner, current president of the five-member board. Over the years, Flickner—a Remington native and a farm girl through and through—has served on myriad committees. She’s proud to say that when it comes to her community service, she’s never been much of a fly on the wall.
“I’m not the type to be involved in the town council, or for that matter anything, just to keep a seat warm,” said Flickner, whose family of French Canadian farmers moved to Remington in 1899. Her father and grandfather worked together as grain farmers and raised cattle, hogs, and chickens. Flickner worked countless hours tending to large family gardens, fortified by Remington’s famously fertile soil, during the long summer months.
“It’s in my blood to want to work hard, so I suppose being a farm girl taught me many valuable lessons,” Flickner said. “I also want to be able to give back to the place I’m from and to leave a legacy of good behind. I never planned on being on the council this long. But once the train got moving forward, it never stopped. It’s been a lot of fun and has given me a lot of great memories. Over the years, many members of our board and our leadership have accomplished a lot of things to benefit the people of Remington and the entire Tri-County area.”
Among the more recent accomplishments, in 2024, Remington’s Town Manager, Jonathan Cripe, announced a comprehensive plan to significantly expand and update Remington Community Park to create an inclusive playground for kids of all physical abilities.
“What we’re doing with Remington Community Park is the type of project that gives everyone a warm and fuzzy feeling,” said Flickner. “Making our park inclusive for all children provides a vital service to our residents and parents and ensures that all of the kids in our community—no matter their ability level—have opportunities to play, be social, and enjoy themselves. Our goal on the town council is to have an impact. We don’t want Remington to be a sleepy town resting on its laurels and not doing anything to inspire growth or progress.”
The expanded park will feature improvements to the existing landscape and offer a range of inclusive elements such as a universal, ground-level carousel, an ADA cliff rider with a slide, an inclusive twister, a garden seesaw, and a giant dome with climbing nets that also offers crucial, convenient shade for children and parents to enjoy on hot summer days.
When all is said and done, the updated park playground will be a resource for Remington for years to come, and—according to Flickner—likely for surrounding areas as well.
“The nearest inclusive playground to Remington is well over two hours away,” she said, “and we expect to see a good number of folks from Illinois, Lafayette, Delphi, and Rensselaer travel here to visit our inclusive park. So this project not only demonstrates our commitment to the residents of Remington, it also has some reach that positively affects people from other communities.”
Building the inclusive park, designed by the Town of Remington and HWC Engineering, comes with a price tag of approximately $2M, and Remington hopes to raise $1M in public funding through corporate and individual gifts made to a pass-through fund with the Jasper Newton Foundation (JNF). The community foundation pledged to match the first $85,000 raised by Remington $1-to-$1. To date, the town’s crowdfunding campaign has raised nearly $160,000 toward its one million dollar public funding goal.
Flickner, whose husband Charlie lives with the effects of dementia, knows the feeling of having a loved one who requires special care, and she knows that the inclusive park represents a big win for parents and caregivers in the Remington community. Once the park expansion is completed, Flickner looks forward to gauging the project’s initial success in the most heartfelt, if unscientific, of ways.
“To hear the excited voices and happy yells of kids of all abilities playing together and enjoying themselves in Remington Community Park—that will be the most important and magical sound,” Flickner said. “Our park already provides a lot of joy, but with the expansion, we’ll be giving a lot of kids and parents from all over the Tri-County region something they’ve not had much access to—play spaces made for all. The sound of happy kids playing together and having fun–that will mean that we worked really hard to bring forth more good for our community.”
When asked about her individual accomplishments, Flickner—the first female to serve Remington’s council—is quick to volley in another direction.
“I’m the first female to have sat on the board, yes, but I have no agenda in that regard,” she said. “In my experience, the work of the town council is an ‘all hands on deck’ situation. It’s about teamwork, keeping our nose to the grindstone with grants and funding, not being bashful, and staying patient and organized. That’s really the mindset of our town—we come together as a community to help each other. I’ll never forget, we had a bad flood in 2008, and the very next day everyone was out there in boots, with their sleeves rolled up, helping each other with the cleanup. That’s the picture in my head, and that’s Remington for you. I’m proud to have been able to serve this town. When I leave this earth, I want to know that I left Remington a little better than I found it, and there’s no doubt that our expanded, inclusive community park is going to improve life in Remington.”
To get involved and support the Town of Remington’s inclusive park, make a gift today!