District Manager's Corner
Pat Frost
I have been the District’s manager for 10 years. It has been an amazing decade. There have been a lot of milestones. We crossed over into a new century and a new millennium. We have wonderful new technologies to help us do our work. In 1999 the District was just entering the world of the Internet, and now www.tcrcd.net is a common public resource for information on our programs and emerging projects. The year 1999 was the first year for the Weaverville Elementary School Sixth Grade Environmental Education Camp at Bar 717 Ranch near Hyampom. That same year we held the first Salmon Festival. This year we will celebrate the tenth annual Salmon and Heritage Fruit Festival. We set up our booth at the County Fair in 1999 and we’ve looked forward to being there every year since. We traveled around the county in 1999 to get your ideas about wildfire planning and this year we will head back out to see what has been accomplished, what has changed and what still needs to be done. People in Weaverville voiced concerns about their viewshed with the fate of the federal forestlands around their town in 1999. Now, in 2009, we have the 13,000-acre Weaverville Community Forest and the ability to help steward those lands.
I am trained in the sciences, so I am always looking for trends in my observations. I look at the 10 years I have been at the District and a resident of Trinity County, and I see two things that stand out. One is the strong willingness of all of you to volunteer and do your part for your neighbors, your community and this remarkable place we call home. We have a Weaverville Community Forest, because you have shown how much you care by coming to meetings and traipsing around the woods with the BLM and the Forest Service. We have the Environmental Education Camp, because parents and teachers care enough about the next generation of leaders to give them the opportunity to spend a week in the woods and because local natural resources professionals are willing to give up a day of work to collect bugs in Hayfork Creek and explain how to measure a tree or use a compass.
The other observation is that we have had the great good fortune to have AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project members in our community since 1999. Every year two new members come to serve with us. Bo (Barbara) Kimball and Danny McKnight are already out there working for you, applying their energy and skills to the District’s efforts to deliver its programs. These are as wide-ranging as forest health, soil and water conservation, and watershed education. Bo and Danny join a long list of volunteers helping all of us realize your dreams, whether for a successful Community Forest, a fun-filled summer day camp at the Young Family Ranch, healthier forests, or restored rivers and streams. Please join me in welcoming Bo and Danny to our county, our communities and to the family of resource conservation.
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