Union Dale Volunteer Fire Company hosted their 5th annual golf outing, dinner, and raffles on September 15th, 2013. Fifteen teams teed off on this frosty morning at 9am. The weather soon warmed to give us a beautiful fall day that consisted of 18 holes at Skyline Golf Course followed by a delicious buffet dinner prepared and served at McDonnell's Grove.

Following the dinner, golf awards were given to the 1st place over all team, Team Pollits with Luke Pollits, Dawn Rogan, Donna Borosky, and Pete Orazzi. Lady's Closest to the Pin: Donna Borosky. Men's Closest to the Pin: Brad Strickland. Lady's Farthest Drive with a Putter: Melanie McLaughlin. Men's Farthest Drive with a Putter: Gary Haskell JR. First Place Bar Team sponsored by Arlo's was Team Stone Bridge; Justin Silfee, Kevin Moore, Robert Barrett, and Andy Belcher. Sportsmens Raffle drawing winners: 1st Prize receiving $450 cash, Conner Jenner. 2nd Prize consisted of a Savage Axis Camo Package, Collin Branca. 3rd Prize consisted of a Savage Axis Package, Gene Price.4th Prize consisted of a Savage 17HMR, Andrew Sanitsky. 5th Prize received a $75 Cabelas Gift Card, Bob Philips. Congratulations to all the winners.

The members and officers of UDVFC would like to thank everyone that sponsored, donated, or participated to make this event a huge success.

Again, we would like to send our thanks and appreciation to all of the sponsors, along with everyone that made this day possible.

Mark your calendars for next year’s golf outing scheduled for Sunday, August 24th, 2014. If you are interested in participating or sponsoring, please contact a UDVFC member.

Friends of Susquehanna County, Inc. would like to thank everyone for their support of our Annual Harvest Festival held on September 14, 2013. You braved the cold, wind, and rain to join us and we very much appreciate it.

Pictured are (l-r) Friends of Susquehanna County, Inc., at the Annual Harvest Festival, back - Mary Lee Dayton, Susan Gesford, Doreen Dubik, Carol Kowalewski Finance Co-Chair, Sandra Llewellyn, Christine Mitchell, Mary Thurston, Paulette Rafferty, front - Kathy Ofsharick Secretary, Sharon Kinsley Vice-Chairman,  Barbara Hinkley Finance Chair, Alice Deutsch Chairman, Suzanne Cobb, Treasurer.

Thank you also to the newspapers of Susquehanna County, PA and Conklin, NY for your assistance in promoting our event through news articles. There are countless others who helped, thank you. It was an overwhelming success and the money raised will enable the Friends to continue their mission of helping residents and charitable organizations of Susquehanna County, PA. For more information on the Friends of Susquehanna County contact Alice Deutsch, Chairman, at570-756-2044.

Rick Leet recently attended Life University, at Nationwide’s home office in Columbus, Ohio. At this three-day educational event, top financial services agents heard from nationally known speakers and added to their knowledge about financial products and services, which will help them meet their clients’ needs.

Rick Leet

“I want to congratulate Rick on qualifying for Life University,” said Regional VP Joe Manci. “This was a unique educational opportunity for Rick and shows that he is among Nationwide’s top agents. Rick is more prepared than ever to help our customers achieve their financial goals.”

Because agents qualified based on sales in the first five months of the year, only top agents were invited to this conference. Company leaders were on hand to thank agents for their hard work and recognize their success.

Rick Leet is the principal of The Rick Leet Agency in Lakewood, located at 18 Como Road. Leet offers a full line of insurance and financial services.

Nationwide, based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest insurance and financial services organizations in the U.S. and is rated A+ by A.M. Best. The company provides a full range of personalized insurance and financial services, including auto insurance, motorcycle, boat, homeowners, life insurance, farm, commercial insurance, administrative services, annuities, mortgages, mutual funds, pensions and long-term savings plans.

The NWTF’s Save the Habitat, Save the Hunt. initiative is committed to creating 1.5 million new hunters to help ensure the future of conservation. Achieving this bold goal means the NWTF needs to go about its business in new, more efficient ways.

Effective September 1, 2013 the National Wild Turkey Federation’s (NWTF) Outreach and Education departments will become Hunting Heritage Programs. This name change and other management changes will more closely align programs with the organization’s Save the Habitat. Save the Hunt. Initiative.

In an effort to improve the cohesive implementation of programs designed to create new hunters, the NWTF is streamlining the management of a number of programs.

All three existing outreach programs – JAKES, Women in the Outdoors and Wheelin’ Sportsmen – will remain intact. These key programs position the NWTF to succeed when it comes to recruiting 1.5 million new hunters. Management of these efforts is being restructured to help the programs work in concert with one another instead of operating independently. This will improve the coordination of the NWTF’s hunting heritage efforts and make life simpler for NWTF volunteers and event coordinators.

Three key people in this effort are:

Mandy Harling will become the Manager of Hunting Heritage Programs and will oversee all Hunting Heritage Programs activity in the Eastern U.S. and Canada.

Teresa Carroll will become the Hunting Heritage Programs Coordinator – West, overseeing all Hunting Heritage Programs activity in the Western U.S. and Canada.

Christine Rolka will remain in her role as Director of Education.

This positions the NWTF to not only grow its existing hunting heritage efforts but also to evolve the programs to improve effectiveness. A few examples of coming improvements include:

Hunting Heritage Programs staff will lead a national, non-event fundraising effort to enable our volunteers to focus more on creating hunters.

The NWTF will identify, train and empower a volunteer Save the Hunt coordinator in each state to serve as the local Hunting Heritage Programs leader.

We will deploy systems that enable our volunteers to register and report events, tracking how many hunters have been recruited through NWTF activity.

For more information, please contact Hunting Heritage Programs staff at Hunting.Heritage@nwtf.net.

The Susquehanna County Conservation District recently held a manure management workshop which primarily focused on the laws and regulations of the new manure management requirements set forth by the DEP. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) revised the Clean Stream Act, released in fall of 2011, which mandates that small farm and livestock operations not classified as a CAO or CAFO, as well as all farms that apply manure must have a written Manure Management Plan. So today, any livestock operations in Pennsylvania - large and small, commercial and non-commercial - are required to have a plan to manage farm nutrients. Until recently, small horse, chicken, goat and exotic animal operations were not required to develop any type of manure or nutrient management plan.

The manure management workshop focused on Chapter 91 (pollution control rules and regulations) and Section 91.36 (manure management manual). Laura Holbrook, Chesapeake Bay Tech. discussed how these regulations pertained to specific owners and their operations. Landowners attended the meeting with maps, animal numbers, acres of pasture, etc.; in hand so that they were prepared to write their own basic plan. Each farm owner that attended this brief session left with a completed manure management plan. They were given the opportunity to become familiar with the plan, fill it out and ask questions about the plan. Laura was very happy with the number of people in attendance and the work that was accomplished. Overall, the workshop was a great success!

United Way of Susquehanna County and other local United Ways across Northeastern Pennsylvania have partnered with WBRE/WYOU and PA Homepage in the creation and promotion of an initiative to recognize and thank small hometown businesses for their support of the United Way mission.

“WBRE, WYOU and PaHomepage are proud to support the mission of our area United Ways, we believe that recognition for the participating businesses is a small reward for the owner and employee contributions we are recognizing”, said Robert G. Bee, Vice President and General Manager of WBRE-TV.                   

The goal of the program is to have 100 small businesses pledge $100 or more, resulting in $10,000+ new dollars for the Susquehanna County community. Funds will be utilized to continue support for local, effective human service programs. 

Participating groups will be showcased in a public awareness spot to run on WBRE/WYOU and a running list of initiative members will be featured on PAHomepage.com through the months of September and October.

Hometown businesses (of 50 employees or less) interested in joining the promotion are encouraged to contact the United Way of Susquehanna County at 570-465-3868 or by e-mail at uwsusqco@yahoo.com.

Dr. Paul Carlson met with the Montrose Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution to initiate the Myrtle Carlson Memorial Fund in memory of his wife. Myrtle Carlson, a past regent of the Montrose DAR, passed away June 9th.

Pictured (l-r) are Dr. Paul Carlson, Regent Mary Ann Cunningham, and past regents Nan Baker and Marleta Shadduck.

The fund will be used to assist Susquehanna County women in crisis, a program that was always dear to Myrtle’s heart.