Hornaday Award Ceremony
Scout Executive |
Rev. Jim Willard, from the Congregational Church in Berkshire will give the invocation. |
| Invocation | |
| Any introductions which are to be made, concluding with Tom Ruane who will be today's master of ceremonies. | |
| Please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. | |
| Please join us in the Outdoor Code which is printed in your program.
As a citizen of the world, I will do my best to Be clean in my outdoor manners, Be careful with fire, Be considerate in the outdoors, and Be conservation-minded. |
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| Before receiving the invitation to this ceremony, many of you had probably never heard of William Temple Hornaday. He was born in 1854 and died in 1937. In many ways he was a man ahead of his time. He was the leading advocate of wildlife conservation at a time when few people in this country recognized the need to preserve our natural heritage. Almost single-handedly, he preserved the American bison from extinction. As chief taxidermist of the Smithsonian Institution, he pioneered in the art of mounting animals realistically and displaying them in natural settings. He was the first director of the Bronx Zoo, a post he held for thirty years, and a founding director of the National Zoo in Washington, DC. | |
| The Hornaday Awards program recognizes outstanding
efforts involving environmental enhancement, natural
resource conservation, ecological protection, and pollution
prevention undertaken by scouts, explorers, leaders, scout
units, and others associated with the Scouting program.
Originally known as the Wildlife Protection Medal, the
Hornaday Award was established in 1914 by Dr. William
Temple Hornaday, then director of the New York
Zoological Park and founder of the National Zoological
Park in Washington, DC.
Hornaday Award recipients exhibit a deep commitment to conserving resources and improving the environment, and strong leadership skills in organizing and carrying out beneficial work. Projects worthy of consideration for the Hornaday Award must also increase public awareness of the need for adequate protection and management of natural resources. They usually take eighteen months or more to complete. |
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| The next group of speakers are scouts from Troop 30 in Newark Valley. All of them participated in one or more of the projects which Paul Rogers led in working toward the Hornaday Award. | |
| Paul's first project was in the area of Soil and Water
Conservation. The project consisted of correlating two
hundred aerial-photograph slides with seventy tax maps,
projecting the slides onto the appropriate tax maps,
properly aligning them, and marking lots on the tax maps
as agricultural or non-agricultural lots. The area involved
included the towns of Newark Valley, Berkshire, Richford,
and portions of the towns of Candor and Owego.
After marking the tax maps, scouts from Troop 30 entered and verified identification of the marked lots into a computer data base, which was used to extract name and address records from the Tioga County tax files. The Agricultural Protection Board then mailed its survey to the landowners. Scouts from Troop 30 posted notices in public places throughout the district, reminding people of the importance of completing the survey. |
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| Paul's second project was in the area of Resource Recovery
(Recycling). One of the largest contributors to our
overflowing landfills is paper. Tioga County has been
recycling newspaper since September, 1992. This program
was scheduled to include junk mail and office paper,
beginning in early 1994. The purpose of this project was
to involve Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, and Explorers in
collecting and recycling junk mail and making people
aware of the change in recycling within the county. Each
youth was asked to save his or her family's junk mail and
to invite five neighbors to save their junk mail to be
collected and taken to the recycling center. Thus, a total
of approximately 250 families were asked to participate.
In addition, the elementary and middle schools were
invited to save their junk mail for the collection.
Much of the emphasis of this project was on education:
Paul prepared posters and hand-outs for the scouts and for their neighbors. He spoke at a pack meeting on the purpose and goals of the junk mail recycling project. This was presented as an opportunity to help the community to become aware of the fact that Tioga County was ready to start accepting junk mail as a part of the regular weekly recycling collection. It was also presented as an opportunity for the Cub Scout to fulfill part of the requirements for the World Conservation Award. He spoke at several troop meetings on the importance of recycling in order to stimulate participation by other members of Troop 30. Participation by the troop was excellent. Paul made arrangements with the Southern Tier Recyclers to have a tour of the facility available to the scouts when the collection of junk mail was brought to the recycling center. The scouts were able to see how the various recyclables are separated and processed and to gain a better understanding of how much is collected in Tioga County. An indicator of the interest generated among the scouts and their families is the fact that, when our district Klondike Derby was postponed from its originally scheduled date to the same date as the recycling tour, the troop chose to skip the Klondike Derby and go ahead with the recycling project. |
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| Paul's third project was in the area of Forestry and Range
Management. He enlisted the members of Troop 30 in
doing a survey of the plants and animals at the Brick Pond
in Owego and creating a computerized data base
containing the survey data, as well as the existing data
from sightings done previously by other groups at the
Brick Pond.
Troop 30 surveyed the plant and animal life at the Brick Pond. Paul wrote to the Broome County Naturalists and the Tioga County Bird Club, asking for copies of their data on birds sighted at the Brick Pond. The troop created a computer data base which contains the Troop 30 data along with the information received from the other groups and from the Waterman Conservation Center. In addition to the plant and animal survey, the troop members carried plastic bags with them to collect trash found at the site. Even though the trash clean up was not the major point of the work, eight large garbage bags were filled during the survey. The data gathered during this project and the data base created will be of general use in the future management of the plant and wildlife at the Brick Pond. In addition, members of bird-watching groups will have access to the data base, thus gaining awareness of species sighted by other groups. The data will also be of value to naturalists who teach classes at the Waterman Conservation Center for members of the community, especially for the young people of the community. |
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| Paul's fourth project was in the area of Fish and Wildlife
Management. Paul organized and led the construction of
trail head structures to hold educational and informational
materials for people who are planning to use the trails at
the Brick Pond and at the Waterman Conservation
Center.
In addition, a new map for the trail head at Waterman Center was created by starting with the existing map which is used as a hand-out at Waterman Center. The map was scanned into a computer and then rotated so that its orientation matched the view from the trail head. Then, the old captions were removed and new captions with the proper alignment for the new orientation were added. The map was printed and enlarged to poster size. The trails were marked to color code them to match the signs and trail markers. The result was laminated in plastic and hung in the trail head display case. The Waterman Conservation Center covers 94 acres and is visited by approximately 60,000 people each year. Classes are held there for community members, especially for young people. These classes place heavy emphasis on the wildlife of the area and the conservation of natural resources. The Brick Pond covers 30 acres and is visited by more than 10,000 people each year. The additions to these facilities made through the work of this project will make it easier for people to make educational use of the facilities. |
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| At this time, it is my pleasure to introduce Paul Rogers and to present him with the William T. Hornaday Silver Medal for outstanding contributions to conservation. | |
| Well... It's finally my turn to speak...
I have a bit to say, but I'll try to keep it short and interesting.
First off, there are quite a few people I need to thank. A big thank you goes out to all of the Scouts that have helped me in all of my projects... whether it was marking agricultural lands, collecting junk mail, taking a wildlife survey, or building trailheads, the members of Troop and Pack 30 have been instrumental. Thanks guys. Also, thanks to Mr. Tomazin for his building expertise on the last project. Thanks to Mike Amante, for my original inspiration in this award, and for being a role-model to me. Thanks to Doug Weeks, for his advice throughout the past four years of work. And last, but not least, thanks to my parents for helping me out all of the times they did. Now, I'll say my words of wisdom. I've thought long and hard about what to say. I thought about talking about the environment and about learning from these projects. I hope that everyone involved has learned a bit more about the environment and nature in general, in one way or another. Finally, I came to the decision to share one of my personal and strong beliefs, one that I used and which was instrumental in completing this project. It is my belief, that you can do ANYTHING, if you are willing to set your mind to it, and work for your goal. There is no obstacle which is too high that can not be overcome if you do this. For example, I set my mind to earn this award. It seemed like an impossible task, completing the equivalent of four Eagle projects. However, I set my mind to it, and achieved my goal. I was willing to work for this. This practice doesn't need to be scout related. You can apply it anywhere in your life... to achieve well in school... to overcome an addiction... to learn a new skill... to do better at your place of employment. No matter where you are, this attitude can be applied, not only easily, but successfully. I used it here, now. Where can YOU use it? Pause a moment, think about your life, and see where you can use this skill. You might be surprised. Just believe in it and everything will fall into place. I promised to keep my remarks brief. So, in conclusion, thanks again to all of you who have helped me out along the way. I appreciate it... |
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| Presentation of letters of congratulations. | |
| Reminder to have people sign the Guest Book. | |
| Benediction. | |