November is all but past as I’m writing. HCC Elections have been held and Brent Hwang will be our new Commodore beginning January 1. Greg Fan will assist as the Vice Commodore. Our “old” Board will sally forth, Fleet Captain Bruce Bodson, Boatswain Tim Brooking, Purser Bob Naeger, Recorder Alice Nissen, and Newsletter Editor Christy Long. Appointed positions are Conservation Chair Tom Douglas and Sergeant at Arms Ann Derby.
Two personal baton passers are in focus this last month. From longtime friend and mentor John Sweet, a nice article about our fellow Penn Stater Dave Kurtz. The two of them were instrumental in initiating the sport of whitewater slalom racing in the United States. I was fortunate enough to be a student at Penn State when this was happening in the late 1960s and early 1970s. John is in his 80s now, and after the death of his first wife remarried to another of our paddling stalwarts from that era. Dave is still working wonders on whitewater and mentoring new paddlers in the sport. Here’s a fun article about Dave that John had forwarded: https://www.collegian.psu.edu/features/90-year-old-local-legend-david-kurtz-still-slalom-kayaking-coaching-after-world-class-career/article_fff75c7e-5b0b-11ed-bffe-a3e62dc97cf0.html.
On a sadder note, the death of my longtime best friend/paddling partner from my Knoxville, Tennessee era. Mark Hall was a big guy, at 6’3” and on his knees on a C-1 he had a much better view of hairy whitewater runs than me flat on my rearend at water level in my kayak. I can’t think of a Class III, IV or V run I made that he wasn’t leading. Nantahala for starters, Ocoee, Chattooga, New. Gauley, Piney River, Russell Fork were fun and challenging runs. Leukemia struck the final blow, what a sad end to a very fine paddler.
Never fear, I am not planning to disappear from the paddling scene. In January Bob Scaldino and I will do a presentation for the club meeting on our trip to the Allagash River in Maine.
With those thoughts in mind, let’s be thankful for the time we have on the water and enjoy every minute of it. We’ll stand behind Brent and the board and off we go into the new year and a new era. Life is good, thank you for sharing the ride with me.
Natalie Wiest
HCC Commodore, 2019-2022