Thirty-five FOS Volunteers and friends met for dinner at Little Mexico in Mt. Pleasant on Jan 10, 2015.
Among the guests were Rep. Curt Hanson, Member of the House of Representatives in Iowa, District 82 and ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee. DNR Representatives included Tom Basten, Southeast Area Parks Supervisor( which includes the campgrounds in Shimek), Shimek Forester John Byrd, and DNR Technician Cody Brothersen.
Honorees included Denise Schieffer who was nominated for the Iowa Horse Council Meritorious Service Award by Friends of Shimek. Denise is the President of the Iowa Trail Riders Association. She has been a contributor to the equine community for many years, and has helped get out the word about FOS since our inception. She publishes all news releases about FOS and the annual FOS calendar in the ITRA newsletter and on facebook. In addition, ITRA donated money this past year to help with the building of the new horse shelter. Denise is an advocate of trail riding that is safe for the horses and riders and does no harm to the natural resources of the forest.
Dennis Hunter was selected for the Bennett Volunteer of the Year Award for 2014. Dennis welded, painted and constructed 16 signs with posts to display the "You are Here" maps on the equestrian trails at Shimek. After many years of stories of people lost for two, four or more hours on the trails, this should mean no more lost riders. Dennis also made and donated two black iron campfire cook sets for fund-raising for FOS raffles. As if that were not enough, although he lives over two hours away, he came to help build stalls for horse shelter 3---so Dennis truly deserves the honor. His award included a lovely hand-turned spalted elm bowl made by Bob Achenbach and a framed certificate from the Board of FOS as well as dinner for he and his family.
This past year FOS had 44 volunteers who donated a total of 961 hours of work. A Thank You photo card was presented to each volunteer. In addition, 28 people contributed 8 hours or more---each of these individuals received an iron-on Voluteer patch suitable for their FOS vests or other vest or jacket.
FOS Volunteers and Forester John Byrd were also recognized in the November Issue of TrailBlazer Magazine (page 86). Copies were provided to everyone attending.
Ringo Covert set up a slide show of FOS activities in 2014 for people to watch as they visited. The photos were made by Lora Conrad, Bonnie Moothart, and a few contributed by others, including John Byrd. To play the movie version set up by Lora, go to
https://plus.google.com/photos/109715468761500706650/albums/6099998381664850433/6100031312642464722?banner=pwa&authkey=COXszMnI8MPD-QE&pid=6100031312642464722&oid=109715468761500706650
Photos of the evening are in a separate blog entry.
