LAKE DALLAS — Holly Deitrick doubts she’ll ever carry any kind of handheld computer. Instead, she plans the city’s next special event by filling a small spiral notebook with to-do lists, reminders and random thoughts.

DRC/Al Key

Holly Deitrick, special events coordinator for the city of Lake Dallas, uses her measuring wheel last week to mark off areas in preparation for the upcoming Waterfest at Willow Grove Park in Lake Dallas.

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“I love crossing stuff out,” said Deitrick, 25, who has been the city’s special events coordinator for two-and-a-half years. “I’ll never have a PDA [personal digital assistant] because I can’t physically write it down and mark it out when I’m done.”

Notebooks and a measuring wheel have become Deitrick’s favorite tools as she figures out how to do a job that has few peers in area cities. Lake Dallas was able to create the position in January 2006 after Best Western opened a hotel inside the city limits and brought hotel occupancy tax revenue to the city for the first time.

State law requires the city to spend the money on something that encourages tourism.

“We promote our lakeside to outsiders,” Deitrick said.

But the job has had a huge learning curve, she said. It took a little while to figure out what city leaders wanted.

For example, a national personal watercraft race is coming to town next month.

When that privately run event came to town last year, city leaders built Waterfest in hopes they could use the race to promote tourism on a large scale.

But when attendance at last year’s Waterfest fell short of the city’s expectations, Deitrick recommended that the city plan for a smaller crowd by going back to what she knew worked well for the area — keeping events free and family-friendly.

A young mother herself, Deitrick appreciates what’s at stake in keeping children en­tertained.

“We’d like a place where we don’t have to spend $20 to go down a slide,” Deitrick said.

This year’s Fourth of July went particularly well, she said. Lake Dallas took the lead, with contributions from the other Lake Cities, to organize a daylong event that culminated with patriotic music and fireworks by Lewisville Lake.

This year, they spent $18,000 on the pyrotechnics. Next year, they plan on spending $25,000, which people should find comparable to Addison’s Boom­town and other big-city fireworks displays, Deitrick said.

In addition to helping organize large-scale events, Deitrick looks after the bookings in Lake Dallas parks and pavilions, a task that may belong to someone in a parks and recreation department in another city. She also works on the city’s newsletter.

Sometimes, if the task doesn’t quite fit anywhere else — for example, planning a retreat for the City Council — “it falls on special events,” Deitrick said.

Although she’s barely out of school herself — Deitrick graduated from the University of North Texas in December 2005 — she’s already passed the secrets of being a quick study to two UNT interns who’ve worked with her since the job started.

Joe Lundblade went to work for Richardson-based Fossil Inc., and was promoted within six months as buyer.

“She taught me a lot about that thought process of wearing multiple hats,” Lundblade said.

Shannon Fields, who stepped in while Deitrick was on family leave, is looking for a permanent job but finds herself in the enviable position of sorting through prospects to find a good fit. Until she worked for Lake Dallas, she thought she, too, would be looking for a position as a retail buyer, but now she’s looking for something more satisfying.

“I’d love to do something community-related,” Fields said. “She turned me on to nonprofit jobs.”

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address is pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com .