Today's Features

The Board of Directors of the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT) recently recognized William F. Purtymun, a National Ski Patroller with the Pajarito Mountain Ski Patrol, for achieving 30 consecutive years as a Nationally Registered EMT.
This distinction is an honor held by few EMTs.
To maintain his status as a Nationally Registered EMT, Purtymun completed, on a biennial basis, the most comprehensive recertification program for Emergency Medical Technicians in America.
He not only completed courses to refresh his fundamental knowledge and skills but also attended a minimum of two hours per month of additional continuing education courses to advance his knowledge on new lifesaving skills. This includes recently completing the National Association of EMT Tactical Combat Casualty Care course.
By maintaining his Nationally Registered status and completing regular continuing education courses, Purtymun is among the few elite EMTs with the most training in pre-hospital emergency medical care in the nation.

Beginning work a few years ago on her latest book, an anthology of poems for young people, Caroline Kennedy found herself looking through one of her mother’s scrapbooks. She burst into laughter, she says, as she came across a poem that her brother John, as a youngster, had picked out and copied as a gift to their poetry-loving mom.
“Willie with a thirst for gore, Nailed his sister to the door,” went the poem, by an unknown author. “Mother said with humor quaint, ‘Careful, Willie, don’t scratch the paint!’”
The poem “brought back memories of our relationship,” Kennedy told a bookstore audience this week. “I laughed so hard.”
But for Kennedy, now 55 and a mother of three grown children, there’s a deeper meaning to that irreverent ditty. Poetry was a central part of her home life growing up. She and John regularly copied out and illustrated poems for their mother, Jackie, upon birthdays and Mother’s Days. Sometimes, they’d recite them too, “if we were feeling competitive.” And at family gatherings with their grandmother, there were frequent challenges to recite Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous (and famously lengthy) “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Only Uncle Ted, it seems, was able to recite it in its entirety.

The busy season has arrived at Bandelier National Monument, with over 500 visitors per day arriving in Frijoles Canyon to explore the Ancestral Pueblo sites and enjoy the spring weather.
A number of events have been planned through the rest of the year for visitors to enjoy.
In April, National Park Week (April 20-28) is a good time to visit Bandelier and other national parks and monuments. To promote  events at parks and monuments, April 22-26 will be “Fee Free Days,” with no fees charged for entry to national parks and monuments around the nation.
This year, Bandelier National Monument will again have a summer shuttle service. Beginning on May 24, visitors arriving between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. will park at the new White Rock Visitor Center in White Rock on N.M. 4 to pay their entrance fees and ride the shuttle (no additional charge) to the monument. Visitation is already filling the parking area in Frijoles Canyon, and the shuttles will help relieve congestion once the summer season arrives. 
Some highlights of this year’s events will include a number of trail hikes, as well as star programs. The Nightwalk will take place on Friday nights in July and August, starting from Bandelier Visitor Center.

The weather is warming up and that means it’s time to build more forts at PEEC.
The fort-building area now includes a mud pie kitchen, complete with mud muffin tins, shovels, and spatulas. Whether you are an architect or mud chef, plan to be at PEEC on Friday, 3:30-5 p.m. for First Friday Forts!
PEEC’s Nature Play area is fun for kids of all ages. Preschoolers come during field trips to explore and find insects while older kids watch their little seedlings turn into vegetable-producing plants. Spring of 2013 promises exciting improvements to the Nature Play area, including the much-anticipated mud kitchen.
A recently downed tree has provided new building materials, so the forts are growing bigger and better than ever. Last month saw front porch and multiple room additions to a main fort complex. There was no shortage of help hauling branches to the site, as parents and many children worked together to construct their forts. Meanwhile, kids ranging in ages 1 to 11 worked the mud into cool creations at the dirt piles.