Longtime RWPA leaders to take on new roles

By Nancy Crilly-Kirk

At an August meeting, the dedicated couple Peg and Neil Jensen, announced they will be taking on new, but perhaps less intense, roles on the Raymond Waterways Protection Association (RWPA) Board.

Longtime Raymond Waterways Protective Association
leaders Neil and Peg Jensen are stepping down from key
roles with the organization but will remain as volunteers.
SUBMITTED PHOTO

Peggy Jensen, outgoing President, first got to know Raymond’s waters as a child when her Sunday school held its annual picnic and swim every June at Camp Hinds. “Yes! Kids swam in that cold June water!” Peg wrote. In later years, Peggy came to love Raymond as a seasonal resident, and finally, in 2008, as a year-rounder.

After earning degrees in math and counseling, Peggy welcomed opportunities to learn about lakes and watersheds from such great teachers as Charlie Turner, Phil Boissonneault, Prof. Holly Ewing, and the staff at Lake Stewards of Maine and Maine DEP. Convinced that understanding the science of our lakes helps visitors and residents want to take care of these resources, Peggy became active in the Panther Pond Association and in RWPA, taking on leadership roles and volunteering for projects -- from installing erosion control practices to identifying aquatic plants, from hand digging invasive milfoil to ferrying supplies to the RWPA divers working to rid invasives.

As an ardent rower, Peggy relishes the early morning quiet on the lakes when just she and the loons are out. Her goal is to protect and to preserve the beauty and health of Raymond’s lakes so that our future generations can also come to love them and want to care for them.

Neil Jensen, who has served as past RWPA President and Treasurer, and has been an active member of the Panther Pond Association as well, was born in Maine and has spent his summers on Panther Pond since 1950. Through the last decades, Neil has sampled water for testing, created a topographical map of Panther Pond’s bottom, correcting the state’s map, written grant applications, reports, and newsletters, trained as a milfoil diver, and helped lakefront owners install erosion control mechanisms. Neil has built websites for PPA and RWPA; managed the Courtesy Boat Inspection Program and the DASH program; designed and captained the DASH boat, deploying benthic barriers, and ridding waterways of invasive milfoil.

To continue his care for lakes, he and Peg have built a house on the lake using best erosion control practices, and every year, he snorkels part of Panther Pond to look for invasive plants, among his many other contributions to lake and waterway health in Raymond.

Both Peggy and Neil will continue as RWPA members in the forthcoming years as liaisons to various state and local organizations, as volunteer consultants, and as an “institutional memory” for the board and the organization.

Continuing as well on the RWPA board are: Elwood “Woody” Beach, a retired Maine papermaker for 50 years, who has lived on Raymond Pond for 30 years. He has coordinated the annual Loon Count for 20 years and is the correspondent to donors for the RWPA.

Marie Connelly, whose family has had camps on Panther since 1935, will continue as RWPA Treasurer. She has been an invasive plant patroller for more than a decade and will continue to oversee the finances of the RWPA, including reports and payroll (for CBI staff).

Ray Bersch, a former zoning and planning board and flood control commission member in his home town, will continue his work as a grant writer and CBI. He is the Vice-President and Treasurer of the Crescent Lake Watershed Association.

New Board Officers and Members

At the August RWPA meeting, the board elected new officers. The new President is Wayne Eckerson, a graduate of Williams and Wesleyan, and a summer resident of Panther Pond since 1970. He is President of a Boston-based Eckerson Group, an international business devoted to data and analytics.

Nancy Crilly-Kirk was elected Vice-President. A graduate of the University of Chicago, she is part of a family who have owned camps on Panther Pond since the 1920’s. A retired history department chair, she was also the director of a small library in Connecticut for a decade that raised $2.2 million.

RWPA’s new Secretary is Steve Crain, a biology major from Tufts, who has been a Raymond Pond camp owner since 2015. He authored conservation plans for three endangered plant species for the Native Plant Trust.

Maine’s ’s representative to the State Legislature, and a small business owner, Jessica Fay was elected to the board. She is serving on the Environment and Natural Resources and the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committees. Jess lives near Raymond Pond and enjoys a family camp on Sebago that her grandfather built in 1957

What is the RWPA?

The RWPA is an umbrella non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the quality of all of Raymond’s waterways. RWPA is important because:

· Most Raymond lakes, ponds, and brooks are connected, so invasives or phosphorus can flow from one waterway into another

· Not every lake or pond has an association, so RWPA helps them all

· There is an economy of scale with the RWPA where we oversee larger programs, such as the Courtesy Boat Inspectors on boat launches throughout town, and receive state and town grants

· Raymond property values, both shoreline and non-waterfront property, depend on clean lakes.<