The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources this week honored the Tarkill Group, a group of hiking enthusiasts dedicated to improving a state forestland trail in Pike and Monroe counties as DCNR’s “Group Conservation Volunteer of the Year.”

The group includes eight hiking enthusiasts from Pike and Monroe counties and is named for the Delaware State Forest trail where they devoted 177 hours of volunteer labor over the past two years.

Tarkill Group volunteers Peter Steele, Mary Allen, Jennifer Anderson, Rich Pavlinsky, Mary Barnyak, Terry Crowder, Julia Crowder and William Hock were honored in a ceremony today near the Delaware State Forest District Office in Swiftwater, Monroe County.

In an earlier ceremony this spring, Mark H. Christy of Imperial, Allegheny County was recognized at Raccoon Creek State Park, Beaver County, as DCNR's 'Conservation Volunteer of the Year.' Last year Christy devoted almost 500 volunteer hours to cleaning, mapping and surveying park trails, and outlining their attributes in a guide he published, and on a Web site he maintains.

Together, these nine volunteers joined hundreds of others across the state to push volunteer service in state parks and forests to a record level in 2003. The milestone 566,090 hours compiled last year surpasses 2002's total of 561,487. The bulk of the 2003 volunteer hours -- 508,756 -- was performed in state parks. The Bureau of Forestry reported 54,085 hours, while DCNR's Bureau of Facility Design and Construction logged 549. The Conservation and Natural Resources Advisory Council reported 549 hours for the year.

For the seventh consecutive year, volunteers tallied a record commitment of service in the state's 117 state parks and 2.1 million acres of state forestland. The 2003 total tabulated by DCNR marked the highest amount contributed to the agency's Conservation Volunteer Program since its inception in 1997.

7/23/2004