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Show Boulder Says Thank You To EMT's, And Other Hardworking Volunteers BOULDER Thirty percent of Boulder's population is involved in volunteer work to meet the tiny rural community's emergency needs and residents turned out en masse June 8 to express their appreciation. Some 74 adults out of Boulder's 250 residents volunteer their time and energy to provide emergency medical and fire protection and special spe-cial skills to meet other community needs, according to Boulder Town Board member Tina Karllson. The special impetus for "Boulder Appreciation Night" was recognition for Boulder's seven new Emergency Medical Technicians who had just completed their rigorous rigor-ous course of instruction. The seven will provide Boulder with a squad of certified EMT's for the first time in several years. Their services will be particularly required during the busy summer months when increased tourism and recreational recrea-tional accidents create a greater demand de-mand for emergency medical services. serv-ices. Once fully certified, they will again qualify the community for an ambulance based within its boundaries. bounda-ries. Since losing its ambulance several years ago due to a loss of EMT's to man it, the community has depended upon ambulance service serv-ice from Escalante, some 30 miles distant. Boulder is 100 miles from Garfield Memorial Hospital, located in Panguitch, where accident victims vic-tims and patients requiring emergency emer-gency hospitalization must be transported. Boulder's new EMT's include Torrian Clapp, Kevin Eastman, Donna Owen, Ora Keel, Stacy Davis, Bob Cochran, and Peter Benson The evening's recognition program pro-gram was designed to thank them for their hard work and to let them know that residents will support them in their commitment to serve for the next four years during the period of their certification. The special class of 20 trainees was held for trainees from both Boulder and Escalante. Assisting with training were experienced Escalante Es-calante EMT's Tom Mansell, ' Cindy Steed and Jim Bowman. Escalante's new EMT's include Elaine Cottam, Laurie Smith, Linda Haycock, Cathy Macfarlane, Donnie Randall, Nancy Porter, Don Porter, Sam Winkler, Lisa Rollins, Mindy Munson, Tammy Magleby, Amie Christensen and Nicolli Spencer. The class was funded by Area Health Education Center at Southern South-ern Utah University, Applied Technology, Tech-nology, Garfield County, the state of Utah. Funding was also provided pro-vided by Garkane Power, Garfield Memorial Hospital Foundation Board, Hall's Store, Turnabout Ranch, the Bureau of Land Management, Man-agement, Lincoln Lyman and Utah Forest Products. Mayor Keith Gailey welcomed residents who packed the town hall. Naomi Brems on piano and husband Bob Brems on the washtub launched the evening's activities with old fashioned community singing. Dennis Moser, director, AHEC, explained the AHEC program and pointed out that through the new group of EMT's the emergency needs for the more remote north central and eastern parts of the county would be met. He also noted that a number of high school students used the EMT class as a launching pad to careers in the (See EMT's on page 3-A) EMT's From front page medical field. Stan and Marlene Stowe represented repre-sented the Escalante EMT squad at the celebration. Robert Owen sang two original songs, accompanying himself on his guitar. One, about EMT's brought outbursts of laughter from the audience. His wife, Donna, is one of the new EMT's, so he was writing first-hand about the life of an emergency responder. Linda Crawford, who has been a popular teacher at Boulder Elementary Elemen-tary School and who is a skilled Escalante EMT, told about the experiences ex-periences of the new EMT's who had functioned as qualified "First Responders" during the past year. She outlined the many hours of training involved in the actual EMT course itself and the personal sacrifices sacri-fices made and urged the community commu-nity to continue its support of the newly formed Boulder Emergency Response Squad. Garfield County Ambulance Board member Vema Goetzinger, a longtime Escalante EMT who serves as squad leader there, introduced intro-duced Boulder's new EMT's. She, too, emphasized the need for continuing con-tinuing support from townspeople. But EMT's were not the only volunteers honored at "Boulder Appreciation Ap-preciation Night." Keith Fullmer represented the Boulder Library and listed some of the library's accomplishments' during dur-ing the past two years and its hopes and plans for the future. Helen Lyman spearheads the much-needed facility which is fully stocked and open four days a week, with computers com-puters and internet access. Deputy Sheriff Ray Gardner outlined out-lined the formation of the Search and Rescue team. All of the emergency emer-gency response volunteer groups will share supplies and equipment and will coordinate their efforts through the Boulder Emergency Response Squad. Fireman Kevin Eastman announced an-nounced that the new 4 x 4 fire engine will arrive in September. He emphasized that the greatest need is pagers to contact the volunteers. volun-teers. The ERS will hold a fund raiser during the July 3. holiday family dance. Karllson acknowledged the volunteer vol-unteer services of several town committees and the town board members. Barbara Gardner ended the evening's even-ing's festivities with a clever spoof about life in Boulder, poking fun at several residents and eliciting many laughs. The ladies of Boulder provided an abundance of home made pies, and the LDS Boulder Ward Young Womens group topped each slice with ice cream. Boy Scouts of Troop 678 had prepared the facilities facili-ties and "everyone went home full and happy" reported Boulder resident resi-dent Ada Cox. |