Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Friends of the ...

A Junior Ranger
Graduates to Junior
Conservationist
Preserving the Park’s eastern hemlock trees is
important to many people who love the Smokies. The
trees play an important role in the balance of life in the
Park, helping to cool streams where the native brook
trout are making a comeback, providing shady spots for
an abundant variety of wildflowers to flourish in every
season, and serving as a nesting place for several species
of songbirds. Park rangers emphasize the hemlocks’
importance to participants in the Junior Ranger program,
and one young man was inspired to do what he
could to help.
While there were many notable contributions to
the help save the hemlocks in 2006, a very special contribution
came from a young man from Ohio named
Devin who learned about the hemlocks’ plight through
the Junior Ranger program in Great Smoky Mountains
National Park. Devin performed various communityservice
projects in his hometown to raise money to help
save the hemlocks. He recycled aluminum cans. His
family skipped their weekly trip to the movies, and
instead added their ticket money to the effort. They
also developed a special jar where they collected monetary
penalties for, well, cursing. Devin’s actions became
the basis for his annual 4-H project. When he was
done, he presented $240.40 to Friends of the Smokies!
With 14,000 acres of predominate hemlock forest in
the Smokies, some with trees towering more than 160’
high and more than 400 years old, it is easy to see that
tremendous resources are needed to tackle the hemlock
woolly adelgid. Recent estimates provided by the Park
illustrate the costs involved in the effort-
■n■n Foliar treatment (spraying technique)= $85 per acre
■n■n Soil injection= $17 per 20” of tree
■n■n Trunk injection= $58 per 20” of tree
■n■n Biological control= $1.00 per beetle
Friends’ Marketing Director Holly Burcham with Devin
In addition to Devin’s hard work on behalf of the
hemlocks, Friends also received several outstanding contributions
for the effort in 2006, including $50,000 from
Lindsay Young’s Aslan Foundation, $11,797 from the
Great Smoky Mountains Association from the sale of
hemlock t-shirts, $10,000 through the Salisbury
Community Foundation from Mr and Mrs. Bradford
Stanback, $1,000 from James Vitali, $700 from Tony
Sweet, and $500 from both the Astre Foundation and
the Knoxville Garden Club. The Park’s fight against
the hemlock wooly adelgid continues in 2007 and
beyond, as does the need for funding to support the
Park’s efforts.
Friends of the Smokies deeply appreciates all of the
support from the individuals, corporations, foundations,
and partners named in this report, as well as every gift
that has been made to help preserve and protect Great
Smoky Mountains National Park since Friends was
founded in 1993. It has all added up to more than $21
million in fourteen years. As the Park nears its 75 th
Anniversary in 2009, we hope that our foundation of
support will continue to grow, so that the Park’s next 75
years will contain many more stories of successful partnership
with those who are passionate about its preservation.
Thank you for your support!
I made my first trip to the Smoky Mountains at about age 5, and my family fell in love with the
area. It became a major destination for vacation travel most every year thereafter. I grew up
camping and driving the Cades Cove loop, and continued that tradition as I married and we
reared our children. We recently enjoyed taking our grandbabies for the first time, a memorable
event for me. We feel we cannot truly say we have been to the Smoky Mountains if we do not get
to drive the loop at least once during our trip. The Cove is such a special place, regardless of the
season, with the abundance of wildlife, wildflowers, mountain views, and history. Over the years, I
regularly read about the Cove, then later the Friends organization, and always felt led to make contributions
every time we drove through there, as an example to the cars following behind us and
sort of like a tithe to a place that had become so very special to us. I was happy to learn about
the opportunity to join Friends and help as a volunteer with events such as Spring Wildflower
Pilgrimage, and am so proud to be a member. It is an organization dear to my heart simply
because I love the Cove and the Smoky Mountains
– Nancy Anderson, Fairhope, Alabama
Preserve. Protect. Provide / www.friendsofthesmokies.org 19