Washington State Fair Volunteers

From Jim Ross:

To all who represented Mount Rainier National Park and the National Park Service at the 2015 Washington State Fair.

The fair is over for another year and the NW Outdoors Building is almost empty.  It is time for me to extend a great big thank you to all of you for your help this year. You were the best!  Always up, looking approachable, engaging folks, answering questions, and passing on your knowledge of the park and the Park Service.

Photo by Ed Hunds

 Here are a few statistics:

1. 55 different individuals worked the booth and snowshoe track a total of 395 hours. (That doesn't include me.)

2. At the booth we engaged 10,850 individuals.  That is down a little from last year but then we didn't have the perfect weather like last year.  Weekdays were a little slower this year.  In fact, the first Thursday was the slowest in many year. But 10,850 isn't too shabby.  That averages out to one person every minute.

Photo by Ed Hunds

3. At the snowshoe track we broke all the records and engaged 2620 people.  Fortunately for the knees and backs of the folks working the track we didn't put snowshoes on all those 2620 people.

4. The Indian Henrys Hunting Ground puzzle was completed 330 times in the 17 days of the fair. That's almost 20 times a day. It also means that we had to take it apart and mix up the pieces 20 times a day.  Imagine how many times we had to do the bear puzzle.

 Your volunteer hours will be reported to Mr. Bacher.

As you may have heard next year's fair will be more of a challenge. It will be four weekends beginning with Labor Day Weekend.  The fair will be closed on Tuesdays so the total number of days will be 21 instead of the 17 this year. On the other hand, next year is the Park Service Centennial and we hope to be the major attraction in the building! I'm working on getting our historic red bus as the central exhibit in the building. I hope you will all join in again next year!

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU!
Gratefully,
Jim