Dinner Was a Cook-Out Provided by the Kitchen Staff, Including Homemade Cookies

NRCC Report

2014

Sunday, July 20

Staff arrived early and helped get ready for the students arrival. They helped unpack equipment, fill the binders, got name tags ready and manned the registration table. All the students arrived in a timely fashion, got their cabin & groups assignments and got settled in. at 4:00pm everyone came into the dining hall and I went over rules and other important information. Staff was introduced, Steve introduced the counselors. They went off in their groups to do a scavenger hunt and get to know each other.

Dinner was a cook-out provided by the Kitchen staff, including homemade cookies.

Clarrisa Harris did the talk on wild life, and Juliet Nagle gave a talk on bats and then took everyone outside after dark and called in several bats.

Monday, July 21

Our staff assistants are very helpful, showing the students what they need to do to get their cleaning duties done. Marie Miller gave the Tree ID talk and then the groups spent time in the woods using the key to identify trees.

Dan Hendrick did a really good job with the Management Plan talk, he really got the students engaged.

In the afternoon we went to the Casselman State Park and did a round robin of activities. Louise Upole did the fire suppression talk, Brad Metzger did soils, and

Alan Klotz did Stream Survey. Each of the 2 staff assistants arrived early and interviewed 2 of the speakers enough to be able to introduce them for each of the groups.

It started to rain hard shortly before the last session ended. We felt very lucky to have not had the afternoon rained out.

Monday evening Steve had Career Night. Mance McCall from DNR Police, Ken Roberts from New Page procurement, Adam Miller, a watershed forester, and Wade Dorsey, a consulting forester were there. Steve has the evening organized like “What’s my Line?” The students ask questions that can only be answered by “yes” or “no”. Sometimes they guess the job the person has, sometimes not, then they are given more background by the guest who will also answer questions.

We finished with Mark Spurier, Manager of Cunningham Falls State Park, doing Scales and Tales. Mark is a former NRCC student who has done very well in the Park Service.

Tuesday, July 22

Peter Stilstadt gave his presentation on how GIS data can be used. Then students downloaded their data and added features, streams, pine stand, etc.

During Rec. time Connie took a group of students on a hike down to the stream.

Steve had the evening activity which was silviculture. Students learned to use measuring equipment, how to find the height of a tree, how many merchantable logs in a tree, and the DBH of a tree.

Marie Miller, talked about Keeping or making your forest healthy.

Wednesday, July 23

Everyone was up early and moved quickly, so when the bus arrived we were ready. We went to the Summit Timber Company and Appalachian Sawmill in Pennsylvania. They are very kind to us and give a very interesting tour. We were divided into 3 groups for the tour. I saw one of last year’s counselors there as we were leaving. Ryan Horner, was one of Steve’s students and is now employed.

Melissa Stevens Nash (a former NRCC student) and Tim Cole talked about forest measurements and forest health before lunch. Afterwards we went into the woods at Hickory and they demonstrated how to take point samples. All the groups then started gathering point sample data.

Our first activity of the evening was College Night. All the college representatives are invited to dinner. Students were very interested and spent a good bit of time talking to the Colleges. Colleges that were represented were: West Virginia, University of Maryland, Penn State, Garrett College, Allegany College of Maryland.

Our final activity was Kevin Dodge’s Nocturnal Sounds which is always very popular.

Thursday, July 24

Thursday morning is cinnamon roll morning. Wonderful stuff! Our staff assistants, Peter and Isabella, cleaned the boots from Monday’s activity.

The Urban Forestry Panel included Bartlett Tree Company: Joe Bone, Rob Springer, Garrett Dickle, Chris Crable; PepCo: Dan Landry and Cody Hessletine; Davey Tree Experts/Care of Tree: Tony Faovo, Molly Delimont (a former student and counselor), Paul Herb; DNR: Becky Wilson.

Each person talked about their job, what they did and why they like it. Students asked good questions. Then we went out for a round robin of activities.

Steve Resh did Chainsaw safety; Bartlett did tree climbing; Davey did tree planting and pruning. The students were divided into 3 groups and each group participated in all activities.

The evening activity involved the groups with help from their counselors work up the data they had gathered, to be able to use it and make sense out of it. This was all in preparation for Saturday’s Management Plan presentation.

The last activity was Harry Spiker, the State Bear Biologist, giving a talk on Bear Management in Maryland. This has always been a very popular talk.

Friday, July 25

The morning was spent working on the data for the Management Plan, so when they interviewed their landowner they would be ready to start writing the plan.

The Garrett Forestry Board had their July meeting at Hickory. After lunch, students met with their “landowners” who were members of the Garrett Board. Ernie Metz, Chuck Hoffeditz, Mike Minnick, Champ Zumbrum, Fred Eggleton, Ken Fisher, Don Mallany, and Tom Matthews all came out to NRCC on Friday. All of the Board members acted as landowners.

Connie had the student’s write thank you notes to their boards. They did leaf prints on the note cards.

Our evening activity for Friday was the Camp Fire. We had some very talented students entertain us, and they enjoyed making s’mores.

Saturday, July 26

Everyone was up, packing and helping to clean up Hickory. We got chairs set up in the dining hall, everyone’s luggage was out of the cabins and all the equipment we brought had been packed up.

We had a roomful of students and families for the presentations. Steve of course, was asking questions, and we also got questions from family members. Afterwards, everyone said their goodbye’s, packed up and headed home.

Next year’s dates are Sunday, July 19 to Saturday July 25. Check out the curriculum on the website www.marylandforestryboards.org