Two highly visible members of the Bath Area Family YMCA will no longer be quite as visible when summer ends. Aquatics Director Diane Hicks and Operations and Program Director Kevin Shute are ending long careers as staff members, but will remain active in Y activities.

“I’m planning to be an average Y member,” Hicks said a few hours before she was due to attend a farewell gathering in her honor.

Hicks grew up in a family whose father spent a lifelong career traveling around the country in service to one YMCA after another.

“In those days the men moved around from one Y to another, that’s the way the organization operated,” Hicks said. “And of course it was always men.”

Hicks was raised in the Boothbay region in the days when the YMCA rented space in an old movie theatre.

“That was what they had then,” she said. “It’s quite a different facility now.”

With two grown children with disabilities living at home and her husband recently retired, Diane felt it was a good time to make a change.

“I need to spend more time with my family,” she said. “The Y can run without my day-to-day attention.”

As director of the pool operation, Hicks began her career in Bath “just helping out” as coordinator of the Saturday swim lessons at the old facility on Summer Street, gradually taking over the supervision of aquatics when the new facility opened.

She did such a good job learning the state-of-the-art pool mechanics that the national YMCA enlisted her to travel around the country training others in the operations.

One of the most profound changes she has seen during her tenure was the increased visibility of people with disabilities, brought about by the passage the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA.

“It wasn’t that long ago you wouldn’t see disabled members working out here or at any Y,” Hicks said. “We take it all for granted now but it required attention.”

Kevin Shute’s title is Operations and Program Director but the best description as to what he really does is: A little bit of everything. And he has been doing it since 1977. After graduating from the University of Maine at Presque Isle, Shute took a job as outdoor recreation director for the City of Saco. Two years later he came to Bath to work under the legendary Jack Hart at the Bath Recreation Department. There are good reasons he’s lived here ever since.

“I really liked the community around here,” Shute said. “There’s a lot to do and a lot going on. It’s great.”

There was a five-year stint where he worked out of town as program coordinator with the Central Lincoln County YMCA in Damariscotta, which he enjoyed. It was while at work there that he got a call from Phil Krummel, then CEO of the Bath Area Family YMCA asking him to come back to Bath.

“He tells me over the phone there wasn’t a title, no job description, no office, but there was a brand new building in the offing. How could I resist?” said Shute.

Shute worked for two years in the old building before the new one opened in April 2001. Since then he has devoted a lot of time and energy in organizing programs for teens and supervising after school activities — a little bit of this, a little of that. When asked what is he most proud of, after a few moments of thought, he answers:

“You know, what makes the Y so special is that anyone who wants to participate in any activity can. No one is turned away. That makes it a special place.” Shute said.

Although he won’t be on staff come the fall, Shute said he will still be around.

“I’ll be helping out,” he said.