Swain,
Tom Wallin

It has been an eventful year for us at Swain.  Marie Osypian finished her tenure as our Patrol Director after four years on the job, having done a marvelous job and setting the patrol in the right direction.  AS a thank you gift, Marie was given a custom sterling silver ring with a ski patrol shield made by our own Steve Walker of Walker Metal Smiths in Andover.

We have added Abby Chapman-Duprey as a candidate this year.  She has completed the OEC program and begins the S&T program next week.  We had several people retire from patrolling including Bob Bacon, Mike Lord, Malorie Osypian, and Dave Sliker.  We have unfortunately had two patrol funerals recently.  Micah Eldridge, an active patroller, passed away after a valiant fight against pancreatic cancer.  Dave Hassett, an alumni patroller, also passed away after losing a fight to cancer.

Swain has opened a couple new glades trails to join Shakey’s Trees and Bandit’s Pass, they are the “Allegany Glades” off Upper Mile Sweep, and “Hidden Shadows” glades, between Dozey Do and Ben Blakely.  Our newest trail out beyond Fools Gold, The Pass, and Maverick has finally been named, “Illusion”.

We had several patrollers go on to become OEC instructors this fall including April Iachetta, Cindy Vars, and Nicki Martello.

Steve Shelly and Joe Menichino have been heading up a crew including Eric Washburn and Richard Stearns to make upgrade to our radio system.  It is a painstaking and methodical process to make sure the radios send and receive everywhere at our area.

Our Patroller of the Year award went to Andrea Marino.  Our Dave Hanning award for long time service to the Patrol was shared by Micah Eldridge and Dave Sliker.  Our S&T Instructor of the Year went to Jennifer Conine, and the OEC instructor of the Year went to Mike Mooney.  Mike was also awarded with Region Instructor of the Year.  Our Candidate of the Year went to Brooke Harris.  Yellow Merit Stars were awarded to Nick Schiavetti and Marie Osypian.  Distinguished Service awards were presented to Alan Efron and Bill Schmidtman.  EDPPA’s were given to Malorie Osypian, Patrick Saeva, Eric Washburn, and Jeremie Stearns.  Certificates of Appreciation were also presented to the outgoing administration staff.