Stories
Friends of Colonel Denning: Just DON'T Say No!
On one warm Spring day the hard working volunteers of the Friends of Colonel Denning were at their park for a regularly scheduled workday. They got some bad news. In these days of strict budgets and hiring freezes, the park would not be able to bring in an environmental educator for the summer camping season. Shock and dismay soon turned to action. Even though many of the Friends are already Campground Hosts (with their own set of responsibilities and time constraints), they just refused to allow the popular educational programs enjoyed by summer visitors to die.
And the program lived! Each host family (in June, Jim and Shelley Ryan and their two children; in July, Sam and Judi Fasick; and, in August, George and Doris Stewart) arranged speakers, movies, games and crafts for the kids, and even conducted their own wilderness first aid course. Paul and Phyllis Gipe, semi-permanent residents at the park, pitched in to keep firewood and ice sales going while the host families were otherwise occupied.
What if your park was faced with the loss of a popular program?
The Friends of Goat Hill/Serpentine Barrens Move Mountains (or at least very big rocks)
Did you know that southeastern Pennsylvania is home to a rare ecosystem called a "serpentine barrens?" It sounds kind of otherworldly and in many ways it is. Once, grasslands dominated a huge swath of land stretching from New York, across central Maryland and south to Alabama. These grasslands were perpetuated as grazing areas by the native Americans. When the natives were forced west by European settlers the area of grassland began to shrink, lost to crop cultivation. Frustrating the settlers were places with a dry desert-like soil and exposed light green serpentine rock. Not much grows on this surface. Not much except some rare wildflowers!
Unfortunately for the flowers (and the butterflies and moths that call them home), serpentine became highly prized as decorative building stone and road material. To compound the flowers' misfortune, the barrens look, well, barren. Enter the ATV crowd. Repeated encroachment by riders who see nothing but wasteland from the seats of their roaring machines was destroying the rock, mangling the flowers and causing erosion.
How to keep them out? Rocks work well as obstacles in other sensitive places. However, it was discovered that survival of this particular ecosystem is dependent on preserving the unique pH balance of serpentine rock. Only "native" rock would do. Penn/MD Materials, a local quarry, came through with a donation of the needed boulders; Stowe Landscaping of Stowe, Maryland, worked with local volunteers to move and place the rock in the most efficient locales.
Then, to promote an understanding of what a serpentine barrens is all about, the Friends enlisted the Trail Care Crew from Keystone Trails Association to spend a very wet weekend clearing a hiking trail through a carefully researched section of the barrens.
What if your forest was home to a threatened rarity?
Friends of Shikellamy State Park: Seeing What's Right in Front of Them
The Shik Friends came into being and went right to work. Their small and underappreciated park sits right there. Part of it right there in the middle of the wide and beautiful Susquehanna River. The neighboring towns of Sunbury and Northumberland are populous but visitor numbers to the park didn't really reflect that fact. And there was the Friends' chief concern in a nutshell: we already built it; why don't they come?
They solved that problem pretty quickly. Food! Music! Thus was born Sunday Brunches in the Park, the Fall Harvest Festival, followed later by Community Concerts, Barbecue Cook-offs, caroling . . . simply put - if you like to eat and you like good music (blues, jazz, folk, trios, combos, solos) then there's simply no excuse for not paying a visit to Shikellamy State Park.
If attendance continues to double at each successive event, DCNR will have to come up with money to buy more park land!
What if your neighbors didn't appreciate the beauty in their own back yards?
Ralph Harrison: A Wilds Life Ralph Harrison is a classic. Born in 1928 in Pennsylvania's Elk County, Ralph is dedicated to the land in which he lives. The Bureau of Forestry was his work home (as it was for his father before him) for 41 years and, although he retired in 1991, he has never stopped working on behalf of the land and its wildlife.
Ralph has been an advocate for a healthy elk population and has worked tirelessly toward assuring their presence in Pennsylvania's Wilds. In no small part due to his efforts the elk population has increased from a couple dozen to several hundred. Ralph volunteers year round not just for elk but for all wildlife. He even assists the Pennsylvania Game Commission with the smelly task of taking deer carcasses to a location for golden eagles to feed on during their winter stay here on the Elk State Forest. He maintains a large number of bluebird boxes and replaces and installs new ones each year.
Educator and author, Ralph will talk wildlife and local history with anyone who will listen, from school groups to state employees to first time visitors; if you're not in front of him to listen, you can read his work! His latest book is The History of Pennsylvania - Elk Country with two previous books The Pennsylvania Elk Herd and The Pennsylvania Elk Herd of Today) on the shelves already.
Pennsylvania's wild life and wild lands owe a huge debt to Ralph's dedication - He is a private, quiet man who does all this and more because it is something he believes in and enjoys doing. What if you found lifelong inspiration in your own neighborhood?
