The President’s Corner

Summer is well under way and I hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July celebration.  Farmington had a great 125^th anniversary celebration along with our 250^th anniversary as a country.

As you walk along the trails, please take note of the new shade structures that are in place on Cottonwood Plaza and both the Foundation and the City Parks and Recreation teams are happy that the little Cottonwood tree in the raised center of the plaza was able to be saved.  With those new shade structures, we hope that we can utilize that plaza more.

I join in with the entire River Reach Foundation membership in welcoming our newest members, Gerry Stuckum from Bloomfield and a new Corporate member, Dr. Jeff Neidhart with San Juan Oncology.  Welcome!

River Reach Foundation News

There was not a Foundation meeting in July because the Riverfest operating team held their Riverfest wrap-up meeting on the 1^st of July and we felt a second meeting a few days later was just a little too much to ask.  We will continue to meet the first Thursday of the month at 6 PM in the Civic Center starting with the August meeting on the 6^th of August.  Our meetings are open to the public and we would love to see you there and listen to any suggestions you may want to make.

Past Foundation events included a tree wrapping event in April where students wrapped the non invasive trees along the trails to keep the beavers away from them.  Of course, in May we  held Riverfest which was a success as always. Under new events, the Foundation hopes to partner with the Parks and Recreation Department in their tree propagation program which will provide the city and riverine parks with seed grown trees at a very low cost of $20 per tree or about $410 per year for 20 trees.  Tom Williams, the Assistant Director of Parks Operations and a Master Arborist will be giving an informational talk to the Foundation about this project at our August 6^th meeting.  For more information about this program feel free to check out https://rootmaker.com.   See you in August!

Other News

RIVERFEST 2026

Riverfest 2026, whose theme was Flowing Through Time, was a huge success.  Even though our temperatures were a little higher than expected, the nice gentle breeze throughout the event made for a very pleasant event.  Spreading out the vendors on Berg park also made it less crowded.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the many volunteers and community sponsors for all their hard work and contributions.  Without them this event would not be the success that it was.  The Foundation also thanks the City of Farmington Parks and Recreation team for all their hard work along with the Convention and Visitors Bureau for their continued partnership with us.

Our bands were fantastic and the addition of the Clan Tinkers were also fantastic and a huge crowd pleaser.  As usual the Joe Tohonnie Jr. White Mountain Apache Dancers and the One Nation National Gourd Dance were  huge crowd pleasers.

Traffic control and parking continue to be issues that the Foundation will address for future Riverfests.  The additional “people movers” and golf carts were a great help in getting people from the parking area to the Rocky Reach Landing in Animas Park and we will continue using them in the future.  We also hope to expand the Red Apple Transit and their schedule.  Well done Riverfest 2026 operation and volunteer teams!

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