The Lancaster County Conservation District’s 2006 Cooperator of the Year Award went to the Rohrer family’s “R”-Farm, a 125-acre business in Strasburg and Paradise townships.
Most of the family farm has been permanently preserved from development.
The award was one of several handed out during the Conservation District’s 55th annual banquet Thursday night at Yoder’s Country Restaurant in New Holland.
The Rohrers raise broiler chickens, corn silage, soybeans, alfalfa and tobacco on about 100 acres. The rest of the farm is in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program and woods.
Roger Rohrer, an ag lender at Fulton Bank, and his son Todd run the crop operation and a mulch enterprise on the farm.
Todd and his brother, Mark, raise 110,000 broilers in four poultry houses through a production contract with Tyson Foods.
Roger’s wife, Kandy, is a homemaker and the operator of a home-based quilt business.
Rohrer’s Mulch & More indirectly provides an outlet for recycled chicken manure.
After mushroom crops are grown using nutrients in the chicken litter, the spent mushroom soil comes back to the farm to be sold to gardeners, landscapers and farmers as a soil amendment.
· The annual Watershed Excellence Award went to the Chiques (Chickies) Creek Watershed Alliance for working to protect the Chiques Creek Watershed.
The alliance changed the Chiques Creek’s name to its former Native American spelling, meaning “place of crawfish.”
The alliance also conducted floodplain restoration activities at Mummau Park to create a stream more like its historical natural ecosystem.
Volunteers, municipalities, and school students all contributed to the alliance’s efforts.
· Brad McClain and Diana Griffiths, teachers at Warwick High School, received the Conservation Educator Award.
The two have worked to instill soil and water stewardship ideals in their students.
McClain helped establish an annual amphibian and reptile count on several tributaries to the Lititz Run.
He is also one of two teachers in the county raising trout in the classroom in collaboration with Donegal Trout Unlimited. The project will culminate with the release of the trout into a local tributary of Lititz Run.
Since 2002, Griffiths and her students have tested water samples from Lititz Run for various chemicals.
· Red Barn Consulting Incorporated won the Conservation of Natural Resources Award.
The engineering firm founded in 2001 by Peter Hughes and George Hazard helps farmers manage nutrients and control pollution.
Red Barn has two offices in Lancaster and one in Mifflintown. The company has worked with more than 400 farmers in Pennsylvania.
Hughes’ wife, Molly, and Hazard’s wife, Colleen, also work for Red Barn, which employs eight.
· Four volunteers were recognized for their service to the Lancaster County Youth Conservation School.
Jereme and Julie Dipper direct the one-week school that promotes stewardship of natural resources.
Brad Graver and Kris Pursel have served as counselors at the school for the last three years.
· Robert and Doreen Shearer of Mount Joy were honored for their 3,000-swine farm’s qualification for the Pennsylvania Environmental Agricultural Conservation Certification of Excellence (PEACCE) program.
The Shearers installed cropland terraces in 2005 to reduce erosion, among other conservation activities.
· Gary Ballina of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service got the Cooperating Agency Award.
For 26 years, Ballina has helped with conservation projects such as pipe outlet terraces, grassed waterways, roof runoff systems, manure storages and riparian buffers.
· The Conservation Service Award went to Gerald Heistand, who has served the conservation district for 27 years.
The Elizabethtown resident manages more than 20 funding sources and oversees payroll and all employee benefits.
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