Member Profiles

Carolina Canoe Club Member Profiles: Hidden and not so hidden stars of the Carolina Canoe Club.

Most of you will undoubtedly recognize my name as the guy who rambles on and on with his Facebook posts for trip reports. Some will know me as the weird guy they call SGT Safety who wore a cape on the Haw River or as the guy that loves to paddle the Cape Fear River despite the long stretch of flatwater. Hopefully you know I am the Safety Chair by now. The Carolina Canoe Club members basically taught me everything I know about whitewater and the many members within the club are the reason I have gotten as far as I have to date. Because of that I try my best to give back to the club and the many members we have whenever I get a chance. Today I would like to take an opportunity to do that again with another non Safety Chair rambling.

As we bring back The Paddler in a more modern version we also wanted to add club member profiles to talk about someone who has done something good for the club and community or that we feel everyone should know about. Many times these things go unnoticed by the general membership and its time we start recognizing these individuals more often. Since we just finished an election and changeover of some official roles, I wanted to start off the Member Profiles with an article to talk about some of these individuals who have served the Carolina Canoe Club in official roles.

Paul Ferguson: Paul is most known by most newer paddlers for his awesome guide books that most of us own. What many don’t know is that Paul served in an official capacity for the club for an amazing 31 years to include Safety and Education Chair, President, and 25 years straight as the email coordinator until last year when he resigned from the position. I had the honor of paddling with him last year on the Haw River. He was paddling his big old school canoe and made it look easy and put me and my short Big EZ to shame. Even though he retired from an official role last year he still stays active in the Haw river cleanups. I have only met him once but I am sure many could tell you hundreds of stories about their time paddling with him. I wanted to profile him for his record 28 years of official service to the Carolina Canoe Club.

Bob Bruekner: Bob stepped down as Conservation Chair last year after holding that position for a record 8 years. He had also served as President and The Paddler staff in the past. If you look at the Board positions database on the website you will see that Bob is on it 16 times, second only to the great Paul Ferguson. He has also received recognition from the ACA for his conservation efforts. All of this is old news though and thankfully we were able to recognized him at WOR this year for all that he has done for our club, a well deserved honor. What is not old news is that even though Bob retired from the board he has continued to do so much work for conservation and for the club. Throughout the year he has helped me as the Safety Chair when doing research and meetings dealing with the Dan River tubing tragedy and risk assessment, and he has helped Shane with many conservation projects to include the Bynum Dam ownership situation and the Haw River/Bynum Beach issues. Bob also did not hesitate when I asked him if he could write a story up for the The Paddler as we brought it back and ironically enough he is actually one of the tech geeks helping to build the page for The Paddler essentially making him an official part of The Paddler, a place where he officially got his start as a board member of the Carolina Canoe Club. All of this and Bob still can be found out on the Middle Haw running his “secret squirrel” training run from the Dam to the mill in his bright yellow helmet throughout the year.

Rick Steeves: Rick also stepped down last year after a record 11 years as the webmaster, beating his predecessor Chuck Brabec by a year. The webmaster job is a very thankless job that requires a lot of work with very little recognition. Many look at our website as only a method for renewing memberships. It isn’t flashy, but most members don’t realize what all the website holds and does. It currently stores all the documents and files for the club since it came online and also stores many files that were digitized from prior years. As I began work on The Paddler, I got to see the inside of the website and what all Rick had to do to build it. He had to ensure it could archive everything we do and keeps all our information safe, and I was amazed. The website also has so many functions for us board members to use to get information out to the club members and to communicate to the members. It sends out messages to many other social media platforms to ensure everyone stays informed, regardless of what platform they use. I can tell you Donnie has his work cut out for him to continue and carry the torch left by Rick. Rick truly is one of those wizards that can do nearly anything with a computer, but he is also an avid and skilled paddler. No doubt you have participated in or seen posts about his Novice trip each year or even his insane amount of time at the Ocoee each year. If you haven’t, then watch the calendar and make it a point to get out there and paddle with Rick and whichever Jackson Fun he is paddling these days. Since relinquishing his role as webmaster, Rick has continued to dedicate his time to other volunteer efforts including as a CCC Facebook moderator, the Durham Bicycle Co-op, and the International Red Cross. No matter what, you can be sure he will continue to dedicate himself to the community and other people.

Doug and Mary Stager: Doug stepped down this year after a 7 year stretch as the Membership Chair, second only to the great late Maurice Blackburn’s 8 years. The Membership Chair is another position that many do not hear about and doesn’t get much recognition so I wanted to highlight Doug’s many years of service for the club. Doug has also spent countless hours helping many paddlers learn to roll their kayaks. During this time, he also volunteered and has been the advocate for our entire community as the ACA State Director for North Carolina and all this while Mary has also been serving as the Secretary-Treasurer for the last 4 years. That made them the power couple who controlled our membership and money for 4 years.
I can tell you that Mary’s job as the treasurer was also not easy task because as the Safety Chair, I was always bothering her for this or that for my clinics and that’s just me, not accounting for the rest of the board positions. I know that based on our voting history, the budget isn’t very exciting for most of us, but you have no clue how much effort and financial management goes into managing the club’s finances. She also kept minutes for all of the board meetings, and I can tell you it is more than I would want to ever do. Mary has done an excellent job for the club and ensured we always had great records of all of it. We do thank both of you for all your great service to our club, and if you ever want to find every eddy on the Nantahala, Doug is your man.

Joe Berry: Joe also stepped down this year as the Cruise Chair. He actually only served 4 years in the official role of Cruise Chair but I am sure many of you will agree it seems like more than 4 years worth of spam from the great JMB. Joe Berry is probably the most well known name across the Carolina Canoe Club platforms as he performed his duties as the Cruise Chair with a very unique flair. He continued to perform his duties all the way up until the meeting where he was officially handed over by ensuring every inbox from every platform had enough spam to remind them to attend the meeting. I personally think he was just searching for a honey bun. Joe is also well known for the efforts in organizing MMRT! If you have not attended this event in the past then in what would be his words: “Get off your ass and show up for a good cause and a bunch of fun, just bring honey buns and tell me that my cornbread is the best”. Joe may not have been in an official role as long as the others I discuss in this story but he has definitely made a long lasting impact in the club and hopefully we will see him back in an official role again in the future.

Wayne Jones: Wayne thankfully accepted another year with us on the board as the Education Chair again, making his 7th year in an official role and making him the senior board member. His expertise and experience is what helped guide the rest of us newer board members and no doubt will continue to help our new board as we venture on this new year. As the Education Chair he scheduled many opportunities this past year for club members to get training but he never stopped there. He was always coordinating trips and seems to be the top trip coordinator for WOR, undoubtedly giving up chances to paddle rivers he wanted to in order to help others be able to paddle. He has been and thankfully will continue to be a true contributor to our great club and I look forward to many more trips with him.

Rick Higgins: Where to begin with Rick, probably not with my first post ever referencing him. I will start with Rick’s official roles within the club. Rick may have only served a couple years in an official role as our President but he has made a huge impact on many in the club and still serves as an advisor to many of us board members. You will be hard pressed to find a major event that Rick has not been involved with or find someone who has not paddled with or been helped by him. He even sacrificed his own arm and months of paddling to help anther paddler, or so he tells it anyway. Rick is the reason for me stepping up and volunteering to become the Safety Chair as he hinted for me to step up and take the role on multiple occasions where as I had never thought about it prior. So you can blame him for anything I do. Funny enough this was despite his first impression of me not being so great after I made a post referring to a swimmer when I first started paddling with the club. Luckily he has since forgave me, or so he says, he could be secretly waiting to catch me swimming again. Sorry Rick, I couldn’t help but to badger you a little bit after hearing the story about my first post. I do look forward to your guidance and assistance with our many club activities in the future and many more trips on the river together.

Larry Ausley: Last but definitely not least, I would be ashamed if I did not mention my mentor as an instructor and Safety Chair. My first real experience with Larry was when he was doing his best to teach me to properly peel out and eddy above the lunch stop rapid hole on the Lower Haw. Despite his awesome teachings I did not pick up on it as quickly as I should have and ended up flipping and swimming out of the hole that day. After that he was one of the 2 awesome instructors for my L4 SWR class and since then he has been my go to for any questions or advice dealing with anything paddling. Larry only served 3 years in official roles for the club, 2 as the President and 1 as the Education Chair but he served so many unofficial years in the role of an instructor across many disciplines for over 12 years. He is one of the greatest influences for many ACA instructors that still teach today. It is still rare to paddle with Larry and not find him helping out another paddler despite him being twice retired which is great because there is so much all of us can learn from the great Larry. Not only has he been a huge
influence on the instructional side of paddling but he is a huge advocate for keeping our rivers clean as he conducts his own river cleanups many times a year with a goal of picking up at least 1000 bottles a year out of the waters, of which he seems to surpass every year. If you search the CCC FB page for river cleanups you won’t go far before seeing many posts from Larry and all the trash he has picked out of our waterways in the past years. I did my best to ensure my grammar was correct for this paragraph other than a few run on sentences because I know Larry will be reading this and send it back to me for corrections. I look forward to many more years paddling with and learning from you Larry.

A few others to mention that I do not personally know yet so I cannot speak on but have also contributed many years to official roles and should be recognized;

Laura Evans: 15 years in the role of Paddler Business Manager(3rd of all time appearances on the past board members roster)
Chuck Brabec: 14 total years to include the above mentioned 10 years as Webmaster. Also combined with Nancy’s time on the roster, the longest power couple to serve the club in official roles.
Maurice Blackburn: 13 total years to include twice as President and the above mentioned 9 years as Membership Chair.
Bob Benner: No introduction should be needed but founder of CCC. 9 Appearances on the Past Board members roster to include at least once in every position except the Safety Chair.

Others with more than 5 appearances not already mentioned;

Nancy Brabec: 9 Appearances
Ron Miller and Sharon Myers: 8 Appearances each
Howard Dubose: 7 Appearances
Bob Stanfield, Bobby Simpson, Dale Erikson, Dennis Huntley, Elizabeth Cantrill, Paul Joffrien, Russ Scheve, and Susan Hester: All 6 Appearances each
Joan Stoat, Kurt Mckissick, and Lorraine Burnham: All 5 Appearances each

In closing I would like to thank everyone who has ever stepped up in an official role for the club and helped to make it the great paddling club that it is today.

William Holman
Safety Chair
The Paddler Editor