The Rapidan Chapter

Chapter Members Receive National Awards

Marcia Woolman receives Outstanding Volunteer Leadership Award from TU National

GRAYLING, Mich. — Trout Unlimited’s highest national award for volunteer leadership was awarded August 22 to Marcia Woolman of The Plains, Va., at the organization’s 50th anniversary banquet. On August 21, John Ross of Upperville, Va., was one of seven leaders to receive Trout Unlimited’s Distinguished Service Award.

Woolman is the first woman to earn the Ray Mortensen Award for Outstanding Volunteer Leadership.  Created in 1999, the award recognizes a member who has made an extraordinary contribution by recruiting and mentoring volunteers for coldwater fisheries conservation.

A member of Trout Unlimited for more than 25 years, Woolman was active in the chapter in State College, Pa., before moving to Virginia. She has served as president of the Rapidan Chapter of TU, first vice president of the Virginia Council of TU, and a member of TU’s national leadership council. In addition, she has served on the board of the Goose Creek Association and the Beartooth Alliance, a conservation organization in Montana.

Distinguished Service Award recipient John Ross is the author of Trout Unlimited’s Guide to America’s 100 Best Trout Streams and Rivers of Restoration, the history of TU released last year. For the past five years he has chaired the Virginia Council of TU. During that period, the council has initiated a youth camp, more than 75 Trout in the Classroom programs, and a campaign to improve coldwater resources in the 13,000-square-mile Interstate-81 corridor, which includes TU’s first Home Rivers Initiative in the Shenandoah Valley.