See you out there!

Boots and Blisters

Training Officer's message

by Tom Russo

I would like to use my last training officer's column to thank you all for a fantastic two years at the post. My first year was a bit rocky because I still had the notion that if I couldn't do the task without any help then I was shirking my responsibility. I learned from that mistake, and the job was made much, much easier with the enthusiastic support of a huge number of team members. I'd like to thank them here.

Many members volunteered their time during these years to help teach at trainings. James Newberry and Paul Donovan served as the "training committee" this year, each of us taking turns making a month's training activities our responsibility. It made all the difference in the world. In addition to the training committee, here's a list of who helped teach or organize individual CSAR training events.

Susan Corban	Search Techniques, Hasty Search and Sound Attraction
Susan Corban	GPS Training
Susan Corban	Litter handling
Susan Corban	Low Angle Litter Handling
Curtis Crutcher	Search Techniques, Hasty Search and Sound Attraction
David Dixon	Litter Handling
David Dixon	Low Angle Litter Handling
Paul Donovan	Land Navigation
Paul Donovan	Summer Bivy, Williams Lake
Mike Dugger	Land Navigation
Mike Dugger	GPS and basic Communications
Mike Dugger	Low angle litter hauling
Don Gibson	Mock Search
Larry Mervine	Search Techniques
Larry Mervine	Litter Handling
James Newberry	Tracking and Track Awareness
James Newberry	Search Techniques (twice)
Jeff Phillips	Mock Search
Joyce Rumschlag	Search Techniques (twice)
Nancy O'Neill	Litter handling

All of these members deserve a round of applause in recognition of the valuable assistance they've given to the team's training program.

Thanks also go to the people who have helped with evaluations these past two years: Susan Corban (land nav), David Dixon (search techniques), Paul Donovan (land nav), Mike Dugger (litter, land nav, search techniques), Terry Hardin (litter), Mickey Jojola (litter, search techniques), Larry Mervine (litter, search techniques), Gene Mortimer (land nav), and James Newberry (litter, search techniques).

I believe Susan Corban deserves an extra round of applause for her efforts to get the team moving on medical training. We'd toyed with the issue for years before she stepped in, and nobody ever stuck to it with the tenacity that she showed. She figured out exactly what it would take for this team to start providing basic medical aid, and as a direct result our team now has a large number of Wilderness First Responders, all of whom owe the opportunity to have that training to Susan.

To top it all off, training attendance at all CSAR trainings these past two years has been very gratifying. In the first six months of 2000, several people attended six or more of the possible 9 trainings during that period (remember that WFR counted as three): Katie Avery (6), Susan Corban (7), David Dixon (6), Paul Donovan (8), Mike Dugger (6), and Joyce Rumschlag (6). Nobody attended all 5 of the trainings in July-November, but three people attended four of the five: Charlie Irland, Larry Mervine, and Andy Nielsen. Bravo! All the organizational help in the world does no good unless the training program gets the support of the team, and I have to say it has been a pleasure to have served as training officer for such a fine group of people. I hope you give to James Newberry in 2001 the same sort of support you've shown me in 1999 and 2000!

Business as Usual

Secretary's message

by David Dixon

It has been my honor to have served as Secretary for the last two years. As you all know I will be moving on to Membership and handing the secretarial reins over to Jeff. The honor comes not so much in doing my duties but in being an Officer in such a fine organization as Cibola. We have gone through some big, positive changes in those years and I feel lucky to have played a part in that. It has also been my honor to have spent two years with a great group of officers and I would like to commend Larry, Tom, Susan and Mike for a job well done. It's been great working with all of you.

Not that my duties weren't rewarding. I know I didn't have much secretary stuff to say at meetings but I did my work behind the scenes. You all see this column in the newsletter but my real time consumer was redoing and posting the full minutes. I hope some of you actually have gone online and read them on the membersonly website.

We've certainly had lots of new people come through our organization in the last few years. I now look forward to switching hats and dealing with that aspect of Cibola in a new, maybe more exciting role.

Jeff knows that I will help him in his new role. As promised, he can even use my laptop! Good luck Jeff.

Highlights from the minutes of the November 2000 business meeting

Continue to give any updated personal information to Susan for the phone list and newsletter.

Who's Who and New

Membership Officer's message

by Susan Corban

New Members: Vicki Benea, Paul Cochrell, and Adam Hernandez have all had an orientation. Please help out your new teammates on missions and trainings. Welcome to the team, folks.

Mentors: Those of you who are mentors are saying 'hello' and asking your mentees (yup, that's a word) if they've got any questions and checking on their progress, right? Thank you for your willingness to be mentors.

Gearing Up

Equipment Committee message

by James Newberry

List of equipment available for Active and prospective members to use on SAR activities. ( For SAR use only)

• Trail Tape
• AAA
• AA batteries
• C batteries
• D batteries
• 4.5 Volt batteries
• Rubber Gloves
• Ear Plugs
• M.R.E.'s with heaters.
  • Spaghetti
  • Chick & Pasta Shells
  • Chick & Rice
  • Turkey & Potato
  • Beef & Mushroom
  • Vegetarian Pasta & Tomato

My primary goals as chair have always been recruitment and community involvement and education. I think the committee has readily met those goals. Due to their efforts we have seen a marked increase in the number of new people attending meetings and enough of those have stayed that our membership has continued to steadily increase. Committee members have also done a variety of public service presentations on outdoor themes to kids of all ages. I would like to thank those that have given their time to these endeavors, especially my original core committee of Susan, Larry, and Don. I think they would all agree, it's been fun.

I would like to end with my usual encouragement to get involved with Cibola PR. We all know how rewarding missions can be but rewards can also be found in giving a presentation on the 10 Essentials to a group of 8 year olds or helping recruit new members while enjoying the sunshine at UNM. Who knows, you might keep a child from becoming a SAR subject or end up recruiting a future PR Chair.

Member Spotlight: Andy Nielsen

The following member profile came from Andy Nielsen.

I was born in the small town of Morristown, New Jersey -- of which I remember nothing since my folks packed me and my elder brother in a station wagon six weeks later for a move to the bustling metropolis of Sandusky, Ohio, where I grew up. I spent my formative years like many people: lamenting the fact that a horrifying nine months of the year I was in school and trying to escape the suburbs in my free time. I did this by spending time in the fields and creeks outside of town trying my luck at hunting, fishing, and wandering aimlessly. The only one of these skills that I excelled at was wandering aimlessly, which pretty much accounts for the path of my life since then. I earned a BS in meteorology from Penn State in 1988, despite having placed second in the "Great Missed Classes Race" of fall 1987.

Having indentured myself to the Air Force as a ROTC cadet, I was commissioned a second lieutenant upon graduation. Since the Air Force didn't need me right away, I bought an old motorcycle and toured the northeast for about a month, camping and freeloading my way through New England. On this trip I leaned an important lesson: don't leave oatmeal in its little tubular box inside your non-waterproof pack: it tends to spill all over and, upon contact with rainwater, becomes a concrete-like substance adhering to what you expected to be clean, dry underwear. Since then I have been attempting to improve my outdoor skills.

The Air Force took me in the fall and it's amazing how time flies. I've been fortunate enough to have spent most of my career to date overseas, and was stationed for over four years in Japan and about three in England. As a C-130 navigator, I've had the opportunity to travel extensively, something that I have found I truly love. While stationed in England I met and married my wife, Kate (whom I also truly love). When she let me drag her on a trip to Tunisia and didn't even complain about a two-day bus ride around the country, I knew she was for me! We moved to Albuquerque in 1997.

My interests, in a non-comprehensive sort of way, range from general travel to camping and hiking to scuba diving to motorcycling to skiing. Dispersing my energies, I tend to be OK at a number of things but not really an expert at anything. I became interested in Search and Rescue after hearing stories from Paul Donovan regarding such things as leisurely midnight strolls through the El Malpais lava fields, etc. Search and Rescue appealed to me as a way to help people, satisfy my urge to be outdoors, learn, and meet new people. It has been very satisfying in all of those areas.

Web News

by Tom Russo

As you may know, our website uses "magic cookies" to customize what you see when you access the pages. We store a little piece of information on your machine that gets sent back to the web site every time you access it, and we use that info to help determine whether it's a member or non-member accessing the site. Unfortunately, when the web site was created in 1996 the program that generates the cookies was set to create them with an expiration date waaaaaaaaay in the future, that is to say December 31st, 2000. Which means that in about three weeks your magic cookie will vanish (it'll turn into a pumpkin cookie, I suppose) and the web site will appear to you as if you've never visited it before. Do not be alarmed! There is no conspiracy to shut you out of the site (the cabal insists I remind you of that). Once your cookie is deleted you can go directly to the members only page (there's a link to take you there even on the public index page) and you'll see a link at the top asking you to "Please get a magic cookie now." If you click that you can forget this whole thing again until December 31st 2020. I trust that'll be long enough. If you want a new cookie with the high-powered preservatives in it right now, you can click your name at the very top of the membersonly page and you can delete the cookie you have now. Reload the membersonly page and click the "Magic Cookie" link as I described above.

I've added a few database functions this month. Most notable for most of you is the new web-based event calendar. I expect that this will replace the newsletter's clunky old "mail-it-to-Tom-and-he'll-type-it-into-the-newsletter" method of getting info into our newsletter's calendar in the very near future. So far, though, you have to go to the website to see new calendar entries, the newsletter is still updated by hand.

The team website can be accessed at http://www.cibolasar.org/

Special Notes

Climbing School

April 17-19 (tbd)	First Classroom session (evening)
April 21	First Field Session at Lower La Cueva Canyon (Saturday)
April 22	Snow and Ice Practice Sunday-above Santa Fe Ski Basin optional
April 28	Field Session at Bernalillo Cliffs (Saturday)
May 5	Field Session at Lower Juan Tabo or Graduation Climbs (Saturday)
May 12	Field Session at Lower Juan Tabo or Graduation Climbs (Saturday)
May 19	High-angle Rescue Practice (optional)

-- submitted by Susan Corban

ESCAPE 2001