Mark McLaughlin Reflections
June 2007
First full day of summer. Sunny, 70’s, maybe 80 and dry! Kids are coming back to the Center from Whipple Dam State Park and swimming on this first Friday of our Day Camp Summer.
I am sitting on a large, downed white pine on the Point Trail that leads from the public bathroom to the lake. This tree fell this winter and it must be 3’ I diameter and that is at its break-point. That break-point is about 11’ up ~ just above where the white pine split into two trunks. The right trunk — as I look at it — is skinnier and points up into the sky very nearly 100’ more!
I am writing to ensure that a 2007 entry is made in our LTER Project. Ian Marshall hoped we would have entries at the equinox and solstice every year for 100 years! I am not sure if we have one for spring ‘07, so here I am trying to keep posterity in line in just year #2! Ian and Scott Weidensaul wrote for year #1. I seem to have dropped the ball for this second year, but I have not lost the ball! So it goes, we keep plugging away.
I also write today because I feel a great sense of turning point in our history here at the Center. This spot is a proposed location for a new green designed classroom building. Some trees are gonna be cut for the site and more for the lake view. “Gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelet!”
The other location is on top of the hill above the Raptor Center, where the upper classroom now sits. That site has more power with it ~ so maybe it is better off left undeveloped … use it for an outdoor classroom or astronomy or other powerful teaching; maybe not for indoor classroom and offices and storage.
Other history turning points for us this first summer day of ’07:
Our endowment topped $1M this year with a $50K gift from Mark McBride. We are meeting our financial goals set by the Provost in 2004 and Outreach ever since.
We just hired a new program assistant to help Rod Lee with Teambuilding and Adventure programs. That makes 9 people that I supervise: Tammi, Jeff, Rod, Susanne, Doug, Doug, Jennifer, Ellen and George; as well as the folks they supervise: Joann, Joan, Laurie, Paul and now Will. Then our seasonal caretakers, Brian and Jon, split the year. Seven Interns at any point in time, including one Raptor/Animal Care intern and 6 traditional interns teaching our programs for us. We also are up to 3 grad assistants starting this August! In addition to all this, Outreach has agreed to pay ½ a year of salary for a new Program Director position, starting likely in January. Another supervisee for me, but a great asset for the Center as we need all hands on deck teaching academic courses these days! Next on my wish list is another Staff Assistant and then a benefited caretaker position.
We are hoping to get a $100K grant from the DCNR for the pavilion that would go next to the nature center and have a trail down to the lakefront (accessible trail) and another covered teaching space there at the lakeside. All of this capital improvement is becoming possible because OPP had $200K of capital renewal funds available if we cold come up with the soft costs for A/E Design. Well, we did it! Outreach gave us $25K of support and that paid for the bathroom plans as well as the site plans. The bathroom project was completed last week, just in time for Camps to begin! The parents coming for the campfire/sleepover tonight will be impressed. I wonder if these bathrooms will be here at the end of this 100 year project? I hope so, and I want to keep this mindset for our capital improvements- will my grandkids be able to use it?
I am on the new boardwalk now. Finished last spring, ‘06, and dedicated just before camp started. I know the photo is kicking around here somewhere with the new interns, Bob Potter of the CCCF, Greg Scott of OPP and his daughter, and our Shaver’s Creek families.
The boardwalk is always going to be one of my favorite spots. It allows anyone to be IN the Creek’s environment. To immerse yourself into SCEC, without getting wet! The bird life is terrific; there are herps and insects everywhere; and you are in the creek with all the aquatic life abounding! It is also surprisingly quiet — from people that is — despite being on the lake, where sound travels so well, and being on the central hiking artery around the entire lake community.
I am confident that I won’t make it around today to all 8 spots that Ian picked out for the LTER project, but I am confident that all 8 spots will still be here to write about, or draw, or compose music, or meditate, or whatever! in 100 years. We are working in the right direction, everyday, here at SCEC. We are ‘making life better’ for hundreds if not thousands of people every year. While ‘preserving and protecting’ is not our mission or our vision, it certainly is an outcome we hope that we can achieve and benefit from 100 years from now.
The black locust tree that gave us this solid piece of itself for me to sit on right now, will still be here. All of its DNA intact and likely some of its same roots will have stump sprouted and grown back even before the planks were made into rock-hard benches along this lovely boardwalk.
The Outdoor School 50th year celebration this past academic year was a reminder to all of us that we are all interrelated! It is the cosmic secret after all….
