Left to right, Horicon NWR YCC enrollees Jon Kroll (Beaver Dam), Emily Nordquist (Mayville), Crew Leader Wendy Meier (Beaver Dam), Group Leader Paul Swanson (Oakfield), and Kathleen Dreymiller (Waupun).

Horicon NWR YCC enrollees Jon Kroll, Kathleen Dreymiller, Emily Nordquist, and Paul Swanson (left to right) placing one of the new parnsip warning signs.

Ten male applicants and seven female applicants applied for the 2008 Youth Conservation Corps positions at Horicon NWR.  One of the male applicants was a returning crew member from 2007 who was selected to come back as a youth leader.  The crew consisted of two males and two females for the eight week program.  Enrollees are recruited from the local high schools.  This year the selected enrollees were randomly drawn from 4 different high schools in the local area.

The crew accomplished a tremendous amount of work at Horicon NWR, under the guidance of an excellent crew leader.  The crew leader was hired as a STEP since she was pursuing a natural resources degree.  However, her background had consisted mostly of environmental education and teaching in a classroom so she was perfect for the position. 

Most of the crew’s work this year involved painting and staining.  They painted all the Refuge gates; and stained the comfort station building, all the pit toilet buildings, and the benches at the mid-way parking lot of the auto tour.  The crew also worked on improving the office/visitor center by painting all the doors and replacing the siding on sections of it.  Other projects included cutting and trimming trees and brush, cutting brush from around the water control structures, picking up litter, washing vehicles, placing the parsnip signs, inventorying all the signs, weeding and mulching around the visitor center, cleaning facilities, assisting with the concrete for the new benches, and constructing a fire cache and seed cache.  They also assisted on a marsh bird survey, the wind turbine monitoring, goose banding with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, bluebird boxes for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, a landscape project at a local school, and an orchid survey with Leopold Wetland Management District.

The crew was treated to several educational field trips including a visit to the Wild Rose Fish Hatchery where they helped with a landscape project and to a local water and wastewater treatment facility where they also spent time on the storm drain stenciling for the community.  They spent one day enjoying environmental education projects at Devil’s Lake State Park.

Lastly and most importantly, the crew had an accident free summer.