The President’s Corner

First and foremost, I would like to thank everyone for the flowers, food, and notes of sympathy you gave me for the loss of my  husband earlier this month.  I so appreciate all you have done!

On a happier note, the River Reach Foundation has had a very good year so far.  Riverfest was a great success.  Read about some of the new changes that were made in the Riverfest article.

A tree wrapping event was held on April 20^th and we had over 20 High School students participating in wrapping the trees to keep the beavers from destroying them.

Our 4^th Animas River Jam was held on the 28^th at the Museum this year and we held our first Fishing Derby at the All Veterans Memorial Park the same day.

The Outdoor Recreation Trails + Grant project is finally complete, and the signage is in the process of being placed at the rafting put ins and bridges.  We were able to add two additional signage places.

River Reach Foundation Annual Meeting

October 3, 2024
6:00 pm
Farmington Civic Center

All members of the River Reach Foundation along with anyone interested in joining the Foundation or just learning more about it are encouraged to attend.

Voting on the 2025 directors’ and officers’ positions will take place at this meeting.

Current directors whose 3-year terms are up for renewal are Gary Hanson, Gloria Lehmer, and Ryan Merrion.  In addition, there are openings for two new 3-year directors’ positions  along with one 1 year student director position.

The slate for officer positions are as follows:

•  President: 2-year term: open (D’Ann Waters is currently president)
• Vice President: 1 year term: Gary Hanson
• Treasurer:  1 year term:  Evan Noel
• Secretary:  1 year term:  Bernadette Alarid

Other News

2024 “HEROES UNITE” CELEBRATING OUR COMMUNITY RIVERFEST RECAP

Our 36^th Riverfest event was a great success.  The event brought in over 25,000 people and netted over $62,000.00.  Over 200 volunteers from the community helped with both the preparations and the Riverfest event itself.  The River Reach Foundation is so appreciative of them and could not promote this event without them.  We had well over 150 vendors participating along with some new additions.  Some of those were a mechanical bull at the Rocky Reach Landing and an interactive drumming circle along the Y trail between Berg East and the Rocky Reach Landing.  The popular Wiener Dog race was run by the Noon Day Civitan’s Club and the Duck Race was run by the Rio del Sol Kiwanis Club.  Another new addition was the 2024 Paddling Film festival that was held at the Totah Theater on Sunday evening right after the closing of Riverfest.  The paddling festival, which featured several paddling videos from around the world, was sponsored by the City of Farmington’s Outdoor Recreation division and will become an annual event and be part of Riverfest.  We look forward to building that up and promoting it each year.

SCULPTURES BY HARRY BENALLY

If you haven’t already seen the new wooden carvings along the river in the Animas Park, be sure to take a walk along the trail and see them.  Harry Benally, a wood carving artist from Sheep Springs, first did a carving of some deer and fawns and later did one of an eagle holding a fish.  He had intended to include a third sculpture of a mountain lion, but a local beehive derailed that intention.  Instead, he carved an additional eagle next to the original one.  That carving was sponsored and paid for in part by a grant from the Connie Gotsch Foundation and promoted by both the City of Farmington’s Park and Recreation division along with the River Reach Foundation.  Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to add more carvings along the river instead of just removing the dead trees.

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