2007 SILVA AWARD WINNER ANNOUNCED

by Jon Nash

This year’s Silva Award winner is an experienced orienteer.

This year’s winner has been a course setter, a meet director and a mapper.

The 2007 Silva Award winner has been a club officer and active in the US Orienteering Federation (USOF) too.
 
Our winner has competed against the top orienteers in his/her age class in both orienteering and ski-orienteering races.

This year’s winner primarily orienteers east of the Mississippi and, on occasion, east of the Atlantic.

Have any ideas who it is?

The Silva Award this year is going to someone who has supported junior orienteering…in the form of JROTC competitions…and the Girl Scouts, too.

This year’s winner knows that the minutes count.

Think you know?

You might be right if your guess happens to be a grandmother. Yes, grandmother.

Our winner is not your typical grandmother. She is not your typical orienteering grandmother. Yes, she has introduced her grandchildren to the sport, and has taken them on orienteering courses, both string and White. However, at a time in life when she would be perfectly justified in relaxing, spending time with her grandchildren, and enjoying orienteering simply as a participant, our winner has instead chosen to do more — much more. Our winner has demonstrated that age is no barrier to what a person can accomplish in developing the sport with an energetic, ever increasing commitment to orienteering.

Our winner is committed to Hudson Valley Orienteering. She served on the club’s Board of Directors from 1994 until 2006. Her contributions to the club, and to orienteering in the Greater New York area, are numerous. She has directed or course set at countless local meets. She has developed the club’s lending library, and written its safety plan. When the club took part in a special event, whether it was presenting orienteering to some 200 high school students or conducting the orienteering special test at a HI-TEC Adventure Race, our winner was there, often in a lead role as teacher or checkpoint coordinator. In 2000 our winner, along with Melissa Dominguez, course set the North American Orienteering Championships. Our winner, Melissa, and IOF Event Controller Trina Cleary of Ireland, constituted a rarity in the world of orienteering — an IOF event where all the technical design and management was done by women. In 2002, our winner was elected President of HVO, succeeding long-time President Jon Nash in that office. In 2003, our winner  helped organized a 20 year anniversary commemoration at the HVO Annual General meeting, designing a 20 year patch, researching membership lists to identify all the 20 year members, and even arranging for a cake. In 2004, HVO members reelected our winner, unopposed, to a second term as President. In the spring of 2006, when she stepped down as HVO President, she did not step away from the club. Our winner promptly volunteered to fill the position of HVO Secretary which had been vacant for an extended period of time.

Our winner is committed to the United States Orienteering Federation. In 1999, she was completing several years as USOF Secretary. She currently serves as the USOF’s Little Troll Coordinator. A regular USOF Convention attendee, our winner  has been a past member of the Credentials Committee and certifier of the minutes of the Annual General Meeting. At the 2003 Convention in New Hampshire, our winner, along with husband [George] assisted Bill Shannon in presenting his skill building program to orienteers.

Our winner is a good orienteering neighbor. It is not unusual for our winner, who competes in ski-orienteering in the winter, to pitch in to help at an Empire State Games ski-orienteering meet, as she did in early 2004, helping out the Empire Orienteering Club with the registration at their Garnet Hill meet. In June of 2003, our winner, who has relatives in Maine, volunteered to help Orienteering Maine with the inaugural Maine Games orienteering competition. Our winner arrived at the event hours before the first start time and assisted Ed Hicks in presenting a series of ongoing clinics for the many first-time orienteers at the event.

Yes, our winner has made significant contributions to HVO, to USOF, and to orienteering. Through her contributions, though, run one recurring theme - a commitment to youth and to developing young people’s interest in the sport of orienteering. It should be no surprise, though, as some of our winner’s first exposure to the sport came as a result of her work with the Girl Scouts.

Our winner’s work with youth goes far beyond presenting the sport to Girl Scouts. She was one of the developers, and remains a leading proponent, of HVO’s travel assistance program for juniors, part of the HVO ‘Junior Team’ program. Several years ago, our winner designed, ordered, and began sales of an HVO golf shirt, the proceeds of which go to help fund these programs. Our winner has drafted more string-orienteering maps, and set more string-orienteering courses, than anyone else in HVO history. At the club’s 2004 A-meet at Sebago Beach in May of 2004, our winner once again made the string-orienteering map and set the string-O course. Probably to the surprise of some native New Yorkers, our winner has led the way in showing that JROTC orienteering can flourish in the Northeast. Our winner annually organizes a JROTC Championship for clubs in the Greater New York Metropolitan area. She works with an area commander to set the date and coordinate unit participation. At the event itself, she can usually be found conducting instruction before the meet, and staying long afterwards, working on results, and seeing everyone off. The annual JROTC Championships have been a steadily growing event, in terms of both the number of cadets and the number of units, even drawing teams from Connecticut. Our winner, as President of HVO, encouraged club members to develop innovative programs that will attract more orienteers to the sport, particularly young people, and keep them in the sport. It is in this atmosphere that Alexei Azarov developed his Russian-style summer training camp for young orienteers, two of which have been held so far.

No, BETSY HAWES is not your typical orienteering grandmother. Every day, she shows that retirement can be a time of high energy and accomplishment. For orienteering’s sake, much of what Betsy accomplishes is helping to insure that the kids and teenagers of today will be orienteering for decades to come. She is a worthy recipient of the 2007 Silva Award.

The selection of the Silva Award winner is made by the USOF's Executive Committee, which is comprised of the Federation's President, five Vice-Presidents, and Secretary. Their selection is made from among the nominations received by the USOF's Awards Committee, which administers this awards program for USOF.

August 14, 2007

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