Park District seeking intern

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

Dur­ing the Craw­ford Park District’s Feb. 21 monthly meet­ing, CPD Direc­tor Bill Fisher told com­mis­sion­ers and advi­sors that they are cur­rently look­ing for a Nat­u­ral­ist intern for this sum­mer. Pre­ferred qual­i­fi­ca­tions are a col­lege stu­dent pur­su­ing a degree in an environmentally-related field and a desire to work with chil­dren. The appli­ca­tion dead­line in March 1, which can be accessed at the CPD web­site (www.crawfordparkdistrict.org).

Fisher also said they are mov­ing closer to a Sears Woods addi­tion. A state cer­ti­fied forester appraised the tim­ber value of the pos­si­ble addi­tion at $41,717; Fisher is apply­ing for a Clean Ohio grant to cover the cost of acquir­ing the property.

Fire­wood removal at Daugh­mer State Nature Pre­serve has been in progress for more than one month and about 10 per­mits have been issued. The wood being removed is from fallen trees in the preserve.

[Matt Echelberry/media-credit] Nat­u­ral­ist Josh Dyer com­pleted a sur­vey of rep­tiles and amphib­ians in Craw­ford County. A poster pre­sen­ta­tion of his sur­vey is on dis­play at the Nature Center.

CPD is look­ing at con­struct­ing a larger stor­age build­ing at Lowe Volk Park. Com­mis­sioner Rich Car­pen­ter looked into esti­mates. “It’s slow­ing mov­ing for­ward,” Car­pen­ter said. “We’re still wait­ing on estimates.”

In another item of busi­ness, Fisher said the Colonel Craw­ford Lions Club has been look­ing for a ser­vice project and asked about tak­ing over CPD’s recy­cling pro­gram at Lowe Volk. It will be held the sec­ond Sat­ur­day of each month and any income will go the Friends of the Park.

“It’s good for them, good for us and good for the envi­ron­ment,” Fisher com­mented. The com­mis­sion­ers and advi­sors agreed.

Friends of the Park met imme­di­ately fol­low­ing. Fisher said the group’s Endow­ment Fund through the Bucyrus Area Com­mu­nity Foun­da­tion is “look­ing more positive.”

The Friends then dis­cussed what to do with those funds when levy monies begin col­lec­tion. One sug­ges­tion included the CPD writ­ing grants for spe­cific projects. Another was using rev­enue from the annual Pan­cake Break­fast to help with the costs of sum­mer day­camp or the stor­age build­ing project.

Fisher also indi­cated that he sub­mit­ted a grant appli­ca­tion to the BACF to replace two his­tor­i­cal mark­ers, and also to help pay for com­pli­men­tary copies when the book about the Leesville Quarry get pub­lished. Those copies will be given to local schools and libraries.

At the end of the meet­ing, Advi­sor Ron Sanders, also a reen­ac­tor for William Crawford’s Com­pany, asked the Friends to have a two-day event for the annual Liv­ing His­tory Day. In the past, it has been a one-day event, but Sanders explained it would be bet­ter for ven­dors and more appeal­ing to reen­ac­tors if it lasted two days.

After a brief dis­cus­sion, those in atten­dance sup­ported the idea. Sanders’ sug­gested will be taken into account dur­ing the plan­ning process.

An item unre­lated to reg­u­lar busi­ness was a large poster pre­sen­ta­tion on dis­play at the Nature Cen­ter. Nat­u­ral­ist Josh Dyer, who com­pleted a sur­vey of rep­tiles and amphib­ians in Craw­ford County last year, made the poster as part of an infor­mal pre­sen­ta­tion he will give dur­ing the Nat­ural His­tory Con­fer­ence in Columbus.

Dyer told meet­ing atten­dees that he found a total of 34 species, some of which were pre­vi­ously undoc­u­mented. Although the county is only 11 per­cent for­est, it had more species than sur­round­ing counties.

The Craw­ford Park District’s next meet­ing is March 21 at 7:30 a.m., at Lowe Volk Park Nature Center.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Feb 25 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.