A self-supporting, not-for-profit group of volunteer citizens
dedicated to improving safety in the Arizona wilderness.

Commander's Corner

We are well into the New Year and not one mission as yet. The weather has been cold but it hasn't prevented some good training exercises. John Avery conducted an excellent exercise on ATV's. This included GPS, Map and Compass, Survival and Quad safety. Everyone in attendance enjoyed the experience. We also had excellent turnout for rope training. Roger Miotto is doing a good job with different rope training scenarios. All personnel are encouraged to attend even if you are not on the Rope Team. Man Tracking Certification was conducted the 10th of January. Dave Beckstead, Roger Miotto and Bill Pitterle are new Certified Man Trackers. They worked very well as a tracking team. Johnny Boyles and Les Hulse have more training scheduled in the near future. Please attend as many as you can.

Tom Sander is the new chairman of the Fund Raising Committee. This committee has some great ideas for this year. Tom will be presenting these ideas to the Board this month. Fund raising is one of the hardest things we do, but extremely important, so please give your support to this effort.

I'm very happy to announce that Bill and Kathleen Bagley are the proud parents of Sara Elisabeth. She was born January 10th at 1:03 am. She weighed 6 pounds 6 ½ ounces and was 19 ¼ inches tall. All are doing very well.

A YES program was presented to the Middle School students on the 26th of January. Jim Martin, Les Hulse and Ron Crimmins headed up the program. Margaret Bullard, Ira Gibel and Scott Davidson also contributed to the program. The YES program is 'Youth Education for Survival'. It gives young people information that they can use to prevent becoming Lost and also when LOST, how to survive and make themselves easier to be found. It is always well received by the young and old as well. I encourage all to get involved with this program. Contact Jim Martin if you'd like to participate. It is very rewarding.

Stay active and healthy.

See you on the trail.

Dave Pirtle 507

Don't forget; the meetings this month are Feb 10th
for the Board and Feb 12th for the General Meeting.

A Senior Moment
By Jane Boyles

JIM OELERICH 518

In October Commander Martin wrote a very good article questioning what a person expects to get out of being a SAR member. Jim Oelerich is exactly what an example of what a good SAR member should be. There was an article in the news about Jim and his lovely wife, Teresa, who stopped to help a stranded motorist on the 260W, a barren road back from Camp Verde. They nominated the couple for the Good Guy award given by the "Payson Round-up".

When I first met Jim, Teresa and I were both employed by the Payson Hospital so we often had a little time to chat. I learned a lot about Jim in those days. He was one of the first TRSAR members to make the trek over to SAR-CITY. Somehow he managed to coerce his brother along with him, probably a little sibling rivalry. Hiking up and over Mingus Mountain was their idea of a week end walk. A very quiet unassuming man, Jim always had time to stop by my office and say "hello". We would discuss search activities and how to improve a situation with more and better training. Jim was and still is very good at articulating his thoughts. Did you know he is a writer?

Like me, Jim now commutes to the valley to work and I well know how the drive cuts in to his time to devote to Search and Rescue activities. But true to his nature, Jim finds the time to teach a GPS Class for the Squad. He certainly excels with the GPS and its many uses. You know, the commute does have its advantages-- Time to think and reflect.

In reflecting back over the years, I have seen all of the ulterior motives Commander Martin has listed, but what makes a good SAR person has to come from within-ulterior motives don't work for long. Look to people like Jim Oelerich for a real leader. There are no ulterior motives in that man-just the true caring compassionate desire to help; THAT OTHERS MAY LIVE.

SAR Photos

Please come see yourself in TRSAR photos on PhotoIsland.com! To get there, simply click the address below and enter your guest password: tonto rim http://www.photoisland.com/servlet/GuestLogin?USERNAME=trsar502  If that doesn't work, go to www.photoisland.com, and log in to our albums with the following information:Log-in ID: trsar502 Guest Password: tonto rim I still solicit your photos to add to this archive. Email them to me at; myknle@starband.net.
Thanks to those who have, and those who will.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
By Tim Somsen-543

BILL FULLER 522

Bill is a real hiking enthusiast and decided to contribute his outdoor knowledge to Search and Rescue in 1995. He has hiked all the back trails of the Grand Canyon, went up Humphries, and covered lots of the Matazals and Four Peaks.
Bill has spent most of his time on the road. In 1974 he began selling scrimshaw art products for his friends. This developed into a career allowing him to travel to all the lower 48 states in a pickup with a camper. The scrimshaw art sales evolved from whale bone to ivory to jewelry over the years. He travels less now and is selling Native American art while his own black and white photographs are being sold through a gallery in Tucson. He uses special large cameras and has a darkroom set up in his home to develop his work. Bill has gotten a few pictures into Arizona Highways magazine.
Bill was born in Cleveland, OH, attended high school in Waukeegan, Il. and Pittsburgh, Pa., then graduated from Penn State with degrees in English and Speech. Odd jobs found him doing construction in Cape Cod, house painting on the east coast, and collecting garbage in Pebble Beach.
Bill is married to Mary Ellen, who teaches at the Pine-Strawberry Elementary. His daughter, Willa, is a junior at Payson High School.
Thanks Bill for over 8 years of dedicated service to Tonto Rim SAR.



WEBSITES

Check out our site at: www.trsar.org


LOCAL WEATHER
Courtesy of Bill Pitterle 541

http://wjpitterle.mystarband.net/weather/wx.htm

For Sale

2-WAY RADIO
Fujitsu 10 with remote microphone, charger and 2 batteries, 16 channel.
$200 OBO.
Call Gary Taylor, 476-4684
(Gary is a former member and purchased this unit while active)

TRAINING SCHEDULE

Scheduled Training Sessions (current)

31 Jan Sat Incident Command System. Time: 0800 Squad Bldg. In charge Lt. Shepard - For Command Officers, Board Members, and interested members.

12 Feb Thu Navigation Training-Time: Following General meeting-Jim Oelerich in charge. Needed: Navigational tools.

14 Feb Sat Man Tracking- Field Exercise - Time:0900 - Location:FSR-198 All levels - there will be easy, medium, and hard routes

21 Feb Sat "Quartz" ATV Exercise- 0900, staging at Command Area Coordinates 375048 - 0473832- needed supplies ,food water , survival gear, Tonto NFS map, topo maps, compass, scales, GPS, and issued radios. Purpose: familiarization of area, communication, map & compass, triangulation, ATV man tracking, and devour Dutch oven biscuits and gravy --in charge-( John Avery and assisted by JJ Logan & D. Johnson)

28 Feb Sat. Rope Training 0900 Place: Pine Narrows - (in charge Roger Miotto assisted by Rope Instructors) interested people invited to attend.
 

Planned Training Sessions (after next general meeting)

13 Mar Sat Man tracking Certification Time and location TBA (in charge Les Hulse assisting J. Martin )

20 Mar Sat. Rope Training 0800 Place: Pine Narrows - (in charge Roger Miotto assisted by Rope Instructors) interested people invited to attend.

April * Man Tracking Practice - time and location TBA (in charge: Les Hulse, assisted by J. Martin)
 

Planned *
15 Apr Thu CPR Instructor (Ira Gibel.)
20 May Thu First Responder- Instructor (Ira Gibel)
17 June Thu First Aid- Instructor (Ira Gibel)

Planned * Basic SAR Academy

… If you would like to volunteer to run a training session, or if you have a training session request,
Contact Les Hulse or John Boyles


Sign-up required to attend this training

* See following notes:

To reserve use of squad ATV or trail bike, contact John Avery at 928-476-2106 or 480-892-4424
To use trail bikes: gloves, boots, helmet, and eye protection required. Denim jacket on ATV required.


Archives

No one I know likes to leave a book unfinished. We all want to know the answer to a mystery. And so it is with Search and Rescue. A subject who cannot be found leaves us all perplexed and causes self doubt to occur. "Did we do all that we could?" "Why were no traces of the subject found?"

This is the case of the Norwin Dixon search in the Sierra Anchas in April 1999. In his 70's with advanced Alzheimer's, Norwin managed to disappear from his wife and fiends while on a weekend outing at Parker Creek.

Although we were on scene about 9:00 that evening with Ruby and many foot searchers and several hundred man-hours were logged by many different agencies over 5 days time in addition to many subsequent days and man-hours over the next month, no sign of him was ever found. Cadaver dogs were brought in from Utah and could locate no trace of him. It was as though he had not ever been there. It remains a mystery to this day and the most frustrating experience to all who were involved. The search was professionally operated and everyone performed their duties extremely well. No fault could be assessed toward any of the personnel involved. This was a combination of extreme geography and poor judgment by his group related to his abilities and limitations. As it turned out, nothing could have been done differently by the searchers to change the final result.

The lesson to be learned from this is that we need to always be totally trained and equipped in order that we can safely say that we did the very best possible job and nothing was left out or overlooked. We don't need a situation where the subject was not found due to a lack of preparedness on our part.

Please do your part by attending every possible training exercise and have the common sense to speak up if you are ever asked to do a task that you are ill-prepared for or lack the training to complete. The subject's life is truly in your hands.


Thanks to those who contributed to this issue of the newsletter.
Mike