The Truchas Chapter of Trout Unlimited partners with NM Game & Fish to set up local classrooms to hatch rainbow trout from eggs or raise Rio Grande Cutthroat fry to fingerlings. This year there were 12 participating schools in the Santa Fe area (teacher name in parentheses):
ECO High School (J. Seymour), Gonzales Community School (S. Gonzales), Pecos Elementary School (A. Jackson), Mandela International School (S. Larson), Journey Montessori School (B. Clayton), Tesuque Pueblo (T. Tapia), Santa Fe Prep (C. Chakeres), Wood Gormely School (D. Smith), Carlos Gilbert Elementary School (E. Qunitana), Eldorado Community School (M. Markham), Monte del Sol School (E. Druva), and Penasco High School (M. Cordova).
We recently completed our annual fish release field trips, where over 200 trout fingerlings were released into Monastery Lake, the Pecos River, the Rio Grande (near Pilar), and Rio Pueblo. In addition to the satisfaction of seeing their fish released into the wild, the kids also learned about benthic macroinvertebrates and enjoyed time outdoors before the end of their school year. You can see in the photos that this is one of the kid’s favorite days of their year,
None of this would be possible without the generous volunteer time of Truchas chapter members. Over 20 people helped with egg distribution or field trips this year – in addition to TIC Coordinator (Mike Jozwiakowski), we want to thank the following people:
Arnold Atkins (previous coordinator), Bill Zenger, Rich Schrader and Carlos Herrera of Riversource, Jim Wright, Bruce Scott, Patrick Delaney, Denise Stalzer, Victor Nelson, Sansom Williams, Aaron Dailey, David Wheelock, David Howard, Jeffrey Jones, Bob Foehring, Kent Reid, Richard Jones, Nelson Chadwick (new board member), Jeff Weber (newsletter editor), and Claire Catlett (TU NM employee).
Rookie of the Year goes to David Howard, who went on multiple trips in his first year with the program, followed closely by Jeffrey Jones – both of these gentlemen gave several days of their time to help the kids and hopefully had fun doing it. If you would like to be added to the call list for helping with Trout in the Classroom next year, please email the TIC Coordinator for Truchas Chapter at [email protected] (we always need more people since we may add more schools).
