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Volunteer View
Two Pokagon Volunteers Featured in Recent
Outdoor Indiana Editions
Volunteer View

Summer
By: Fred Wooley, Pokagon State Park Interpretive Naturalist
Not to usurp the thunder of The Volunteer
View, but our IDNR Outdoor Indiana magazine
ran two articles this year featuring two
hardworking volunteers at Pokagon State Park.
Actually, The Volunteer View did get the
scoop on one volunteer, Ellsworth Smith as he was
featured in the Spring
Issue of The View.
Ellsworth is from the
Fort Wayne area and
makes regular trips to
Pokagon State Park for
the purpose of pulling
garlic mustard. The
July-August issue of
Outdoor Indiana ran
a wonderful article on
garlic mustard, penned
by former Mounds
State Park Seasonal
Interpreter, Stephanie
Keevil. It covered all
aspects of the plant
and, of course, addressed its eradication. One
means of eradication is pulling, and no one takes it
more seriously than Ellsworth Smith. Ellsworth
met with IDNR photographer, John Maxwell, and
John captured some great shots of Ellsworth in
action. One such photo ran in that issue of
Outdoor Indiana.
As an update on Ellsworth, with this growing
season now behind us, we have him recorded as
working 136.5 hours at Pokagon State Park, pulling
garlic mustard! That is a huge effort! That is a lot
of plants, removed from the seed providing pool.
Not only did Ellsworth pull here at Pokagon, but
spent some time at Spring Mill State Park and at
our Gene Stratton Porter Home State Historic Site
in Rome City, Indiana.
Thank you Ellsworth! We do not pay a lot,
which is the definition of volunteering, but we are
tickled that we have been able to provide the ink
we have on this great project to save our natural
resources and on this great and dedicated volunteer.
A second volunteer to be highlighted in
Outdoor Indiana is James Clary. James appeared
in the Hoosier Profile column of the September-
October issue. We featured James and his unique
Eagle Scout project that he did at the main beach.
There, James installed a bio-engineered, native
glacial stone seawall. This involved incredible
planning and organization, truckloads of stones,
flats of native plants, and a lot of people power in
the form of scouts, family, friends, and park
employees. It has to be one of the most involved
and thorough Eagle Projects to ever occur at
Pokagon.
James mother, Julie Clary took a lot of
photographs of the project and four of those
appeared in the magazine. As a side note, Julies
mother, Janet Ahlersmeyer was a volunteer at the
Pokagon Nature Center back in the mid 1980s.
So, some 20 years later, it was a treat to have Janet
back in the park, volunteering with food
preparation during workdays when third-generation
volunteer, James, was hard at it.
Thank you volunteers and thank you
Outdoor Indiana!

Ellsworth Smith enjoys a
beautiful spring day on the front
deck of the Pokagon State Park
Nature Center with an arm full
of his favorite plant!
James Clary (third boy from left, in third row wearing red
shirt and ball cap) stands with his September work crew next to
his Eagle Scout project; a natural, glacial stone seawall, at the
Pokagon State Park main beach.
By: Jim Eagleman, Brown County State Park Interpreter
At probably all DNR properties and interpretive
centers, the summer of 2007 was busy and eventful.
Brown County staff spent the hot summer offering
events and activities to lodge guests and campers
before the heat of the day became overwhelming.
This summer will go down in the annals of weather
journals as a high temperature-high humidity,
prolonged drought from early May to mid-August!
As they said everyday in Brown County this
summer, shes a hot one!. It will also be
remembered as a summer of staff resourcefulness
and dedication.
A Smokey Safety Day on Saturday, August 11,
2007 started out normally. We scheduled games
and contests with prizes throughout the day, with
park volunteer and 2001 DNR Volunteer of the
Year award winner, Ginny Hanner helping as she
always does with the popular Smokey coloring
sheet contest. Ginnys son, Pat EuDaly and wife,
Suzannah also helped. Pat held
the controls and manipulated
robotic Smokey to the delight of
all youngsters. Both Pat and
Suzannah, and Ginny are also
members of MC Axe and Fir</i>e
Crew, a group of professional
firefighters and educators who
perform at several schools and
Indiana DNR sites. Their
message of home fire safety to
schoolchildren that evening complimented
Smokeys message for a nice turnout of campers.
The theme: to be safe with all open fires.
Interpreters, Susan Douglas, Brittany Davis and
part-time interpreter/ volunteer Bob Welsch, helped
with Smokey Bingo, Smokey birthday cake
celebration and Smokey prizes. Jim Eagleman gave
a morning talk on the use of prescribed fire tools
under the large program tent. Long-time volunteer
Terri Warne and husband Brad as Smokey were
also on hand all day. The Brown County Volunteer
Fire Department arrived in the afternoon with their
fire truck for Smokey to ride through the
campgrounds. Promoting the evening program with
MC Axe at the Nature Center amphitheater,
Smokey and the fire truck certainly got a lot of
attention from all the campers!
All was proceeding well, until we heard a yell
from the storage room in the auditorium. Terri
Warne had fallen off a small, elevated walkway in
the A-V booth as she was bringing out more
Smokey items. As she fell, she landed wrong on
her ankle. After limping around a few minutes, she
hobbled out to continue with activities. Terri is also
a professional physical therapist and knew later in
the day it was not simply a bad ankle sprain. She
wrapped the ankle to alleviate pain, but by the next
day it had worsened. Going to the emergency room
on Sunday, it was confirmed she had fractured the
ankle. Staying off an injured foot is not an easy
thing to ask an active mother of two young girls!
Terri is also coach of the Brown County High
School dance team and practice continued. She
operates her own bat rehabilitation service,
BatWorld South Indy at her home. Despite all these
demanding responsibilities, the doctor said it was
best she keep off her foot as much as possible.
Within a week, Terri was up and active, this
time wearing a supportive tall
boot to immobilize the entire foot.
She was scheduled to present a bat
talk at the DNR building within a
few days at the Indiana State Fair.
Not one to lose an opportunity to
talk about her favorite topic, Terri
had Brad drive her to the
fairgrounds with some live bats
and props to meet her program
commitment. Terri joked with
other DNR employees working the fair that day,
The show must go on!
We never truly realize the unwavering
commitment some volunteers possess when they
come to our DNR sites. A love of nature, the out-
of-doors, people enjoying natural settings, is what
brings applicants to interviews. As volunteer Bob
Welsch once said coming to work, I do it for me.
His time at the Nature Center is a time to enjoy.
Both Bob and Terri have this in common: a love of
the property and an attachment to people. We see
this every time these two Brown County volunteers
come to work. They have a desire to share what
they know with many who visit. And some times,
its the extra effort like Terris that helps confirm
for us how lucky we are. Such performance is
commendable and allows us see a good volunteer
become a remarkable volunteer!
2
Brown County Volunteers Step Up!
Brad (Smokey) & Terri Warne
By: Jim Eagleman, Brown County State Park Interpretive
Naturalist
It started out like most ideas, with a vision of
what it could become. This after a young Eagle
Scout candidate approached me a few years ago.
I say a few years; my file indicates it was 1987!
For his project, he wanted to do something in the
park to help wildlife. We talked and it was his
mother who suggested a watering hole, as she
called it. There was no water provided for the
birds and animals that came to the Nature Center
feeders. Maybe there was space for a fountain, or
a little pond just outside the bird rooms one-
way window?
After some discussion, a site change proposal
was submitted and approved by central office and
other administrative work
completed. Within a few weeks
and after much planning by the
scout, we had the bulldozer and
operator scheduled. We were
ready to dig. On a rainy day in
late winter, a large dump truck
hauled off damp soil, root
clumps and rock.
Theres your pond, the