With more than 38 percent of La Plata County managed by either the U.S. Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management, not to mention thousands of acres across the landscape of Southwest Colorado in the same boat, the stewardship of those lands makes a difference in the quality of life for everyone.
Enter the San Juan Mountains Association, whose staff and 300-plus volunteers act as the nonprofit arm of area public lands, including San Juan National Forest, BLM Tres Rios Field Office and BLM Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. I don’t write about them nearly often enough for all they do.
To understand the importance of this organization, consider this – after a career in the Forest Service, Mark Stiles, who retired as the San Juan National Forest supervisor, promptly turned around and volunteered for SJMA (and FireWise). That says how much its work is appreciated.
The association’s volunteers participate in myriad programs including providing visitor services and managing bookstores in 13 locations, from Mancos and Dolores to Saguache and Montrose. Volunteers work as wilderness information specialists, Ghost Riders, in conservation education and on the Adopt-a-Road/Trail program. SJMA provides youth conservation education in the schools and coordinates field projects such as National Trails and National Public Lands days, Alternative Spring Break and other projects.
Speaking of which, Saturday is National Public Lands Day, and the project this year is a “Trasher Hunt” at Phil’s World in Cortez. The 2,000 acres of juniper and piñon have become a dumping ground for trash, and a clean up is much needed. For the details, visit www.sjma.org/volunteer/opportunities/events.htm. It’s supposed to be a perfect Indian summer day, ideal for an outdoor project.
Anyway, back to my main train of thought. At the end of August, SJMA held its annual Volunteer Appreciation Picnic at the Junction Creek Campground. (It had to be outdoors on public lands, after all.) Volunteers came from as far away as Pagosa Springs for the festivities.
SJMA, the San Juan National Forest and Tres Rios BLM office staff put on their chef hats to prepare a summer meal for about 150 people. Volunteer program coordinator Kathe Hayes planned and prepared much of the Hispanic-themed picnic, starting with margaritas, beer and wine before diners dug into a taco bar, beans, roasted corn (by Forest Service staffers Tom Rice and Mark Lambert) and their Forest Service colleague Celia Boyd, who made her famous cooked-over-coals peach cobbler. (I was really bummed to miss this – an orange river meant I had to cover an Environmental Protection Agency community meeting instead.)
Steamworks Brewing Co., Jim and Sherri Libby and Osprey all deserve credit as sponsors. Sherri Libby also deserves mention as picnic assistant, and Connie Robb took on the task of providing the refreshments. Among the servers were FS staff members Pauline Ellis and Christy Garrou.
The picnic is also a chance to honor volunteers who have gone above and beyond. As most nonprofits do, SJMA tracks the hours volunteers put in, and the names of those who put in the most hours go on the plaques.
Lois Bartig-Small must be exhausted after the 2,000 hours she volunteered. That’s 50 40-hour work weeks, or a full-time job equivalent, if you don’t want to do the math. I believe that also qualifies her for the title volunteer extraordinaire.
Richard Hamilton and Charlie Schmalz went on the 750-hour plaque, while Steve Barker, William Beno, Tom Galbraith, Don Gawlik, Sue Hinkle, Sherri Libby, Kris Miner and Keith Roush are immortalized on the 250-hour plaque.
I would be remiss not to mention the other two-thirds of the dynamic trio who helm SJMA. Executive Director Susan Bryson and Cultural Program Director Ruth Lambert were also on hand to celebrate their volunteers. Lambert was fresh off winning three Colorado Book Awards for her book The Wooden Canvas. Published by San Juan Mountains Association, it earned first place honors for history and printing, and second place for interior layout and design by designer Lisa Snider. The Wooden Canvas studies the cultural and historic context of aspen-tree carvings along the Pine Piedra Stock Driveway. The book was illustrated with historic and contemporary photographs.
Consider this my appreciation column to the SJMA and its devoted volunteers.
HHH
Happy birthday wishes go out to the first of the Libras, including Ward Lee, Peggy Herrera, Brendon Shaline, Chase Collins, John Wells, Jim Burpee, Margaret Vallejos, Linkin Griego, Dewey Peden, Anna Marie Bishop, Ruth Bingham, Irene Nix, Bob Galbraith, Jan Kyser, Joan Southcotte, Jordan Potthoff, Steve Jackson, Jill Rogers, Josh Spaeder, Roxanne Hamilton, Nancy Bennett, Debbie Rowe, Susan Kolb, Everett Manson, Paul Plvan, Bryce Forsyth, Brian Grandin, Abigail Stier, Bruce Nye, Mae Reed, Jessica Steele-Hemenover and Ben Southworth.
Special birthday greetings go to my colleague and friend Judith Reynolds.
HHH
Life has been so frantic lately that it seems I am doing everything at the last minute, so my apologies go to Durango Friends of the Arts. The organization, which provides funding for artists and arts organizations, will hold one of its big fundraisers of the year, Game Day, at the Strater Hotel on Friday.
La Plata County residents love to play games, whether it’s bridge, mahjong, Scrabble, bunco or cribbage – all of which will be on offer Friday. Everyone’s welcome, including novice players. I’ve been to a number of these and they are fun, fun, fun. I’m sorry to have to miss this one, which will have games going in both the Mahogany Grille and the Oak Room, with lunch served in the Henry Strater Theatre.
The competition, er, fun, begins at 10:30 a.m. and concludes at 3:30 p.m.
Tickets are $45, with $23 tax-deductible. And because it includes lunch, your reservation needs to be made no later than today by calling Tina Marie Trump at 385-8540 or Caroline Todd at 247-0359. They want a reservation check, but you should ask them as to whether they want you to mail it at this late date. My bad.
Because this is a fundraiser, there will be an auction, but it will only include 10 special items. Having seen what these ladies have cooked up in the past, they’re sure to be one-of-a-kind items, so bring your checkbook.
HHH
I have followed the career of Philip Mann, Durango High School alumnus and son of Fort Lewis College Professor Emerita Rochelle Mann, with great fascination. Durango’s first – and so far only – Rhodes Scholar, he has been making a name for himself as a conductor.
That’s a major accomplishment when we are graduating dozens of aspiring conductors in an era of tight arts funding, when the number of orchestras is shrinking or, at best, holding steady.
Mann, who is currently the music director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, will be conducting closer to his hometown over the next year. If you can’t wait until he is the guest conductor for the San Juan Symphony in April, you can mosey down to New Mexico, where he will be conducting the Santa Fe Symphony at 4 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Lensic Theatre. Tickets are available online or at the box office, (505) 983-1414.
In November, he’ll be back in the Southwest to be honored by his alma mater, Arizona State University, with the Barrett Honors College Distinguished Alumni Award. I’ve lost track of his exact age, but it’s in the ballpark of 37, so he’s quite young to get an honor generally given to someone on the cusp of retirement.
One can safely say that Shelley Mann is one proud mama, although she was that long ago, as this is just the latest in a long string of accomplishments.
HHH
I personally can’t wait until Saturday evening, when University of New Mexico Professor Emeritus John Kessell will talk about Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, who was camping on the site where Durango now sits while the Founding Fathers were celebrating the Declaration of Independence. His four-month-long, 1,700-mile journey quest around the Four Corners led to an iconic map – part of which was included in the fabulous Red exhibit at the International Folklore Museum in Santa Fe this year.
The map, as one might expect pre-pre-pre-GPS included some significant errors regarding the water side of the equation. Those errors weren’t corrected until John Charles Fremont straightened out the geographic record in 1845. But that doesn’t lessen Miera y Pacheco’s monumental accomplishment.
Kessell, who wrote Miera y Pacheco: A Renaissance Spaniard in Eighteenth Century New Mexico, will be speaking at 6 p.m. Saturday in the Vallecito Room in the Fort Lewis College Student Union. The 2015 Duane Smith Lecture in Southwest Studies is hosted by the Center of Southwest Studies, which is certainly apropos.
HHH
Celebrating the first official fall anniversaries are Nick and Anne Spencer, Darrell and Diane Gardner, Greg and Virginia Miller Cavanagh, David and Genna Kidd, Ed and Suzanne Cash and Scott and Sharon Kuhn.
HHH
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