At the recent Richland Soil and Water Conservation District (Richland SWCD) Annual Celebration, Denise Tenison was announced as the Richland SWCD 2020 Volunteer of the Year.
Denise is a long-time volunteer with Richland SWCD. She is a Precipitation, Lake and Stream Monitor Volunteer. Born in Mansfield, she and her husband of 34 years, Denny, live outside Lexington not far from Clear Fork Reservoir and have two adult children.
Prior to 1998, Denise conducted lake monitoring for the District while on Clear Fork Reservoir. She resumed volunteering again for the District in 2015. She has been joined by her husband, Denny, and her daughter Christina, on her volunteer activities; she and Denny now kayak out to two sites on the Clear Fork to collect data twice a month.
Denise has also developed an interest in daily precipitation monitoring in 2015 and lastly began stream monitoring, with this being her second season. She collects data at four different sites on the Black Fork outside of Shelby each month. Denise volunteered approximately 85 hours so far this year.
All data collected from volunteers across Richland County is entered into the computer for easy use and reference.
Paw paw tree seedlings were donated by Rob and Amy Workman and planted at the Stoller Road Trail at Clear Fork Reservoir in honor of Denise.
The 77-member volunteer team was also recognized at the Annual Celebration for their many contributions to Richland SWCD. Together this year, volunteers have contributed more than 2,200 hours, which has saved the General Fund approximately $23,000. Volunteers contribute high quality data that is used to track soil and water health in Richland County’s 8 watersheds and may be viewed on the Water Data Map of the Richland SWCD website at https://richlandswcd.net/.
Call 419.747.8686 or go to http://richlandswcd.net/ to learn how to volunteer and about programs and services provided by Richland SWCD.
Source: Richland SWCD; Image by Lars_Nissen from Pixabay
