I am pleased to report that we are working with the Sportsman’s Club to come up with a permanent solution to the problem of the plastic shotgun wads that have been entering the Lake recently. I toured the facility with a couple of the members of their Board of Directors a couple weeks ago. It was reported to me that they had collected and removed over 7 tons of wads from their range and installed a considerable amount of fencing to prevent future wads from coming into the Lake. There was a substantial rain storm last week and (so far) I have had no reports of large amounts of shotgun wads.
Also, Laura and her staff have been working diligently to wrap up last year’s dock electrical inspection issues. As of this writing there are only 39 non-compliant docks. I know problems can happen if there is even only one dock with an electrical issue, but compared to where we were a few years ago, it is huge progress. 2018 inspections have begun. Our inspectors will be out on the water, flying the blue flag and wearing uniform shirts.
On May 16th, we lost a very important member of our operations staff, Monte McLin. Monte came to work at the Association in February of 2003 and has been a member of our community for over 30 years. We relied on Monte to fix just about everything around here that needed fixing and operating everything around here that needed operating. Not only did he run the dredges, but he literally took them apart and put them back together after every season. He modified them and improved them and operated them in such a way that many of us have much better water around their docks as a result. His talents and abilities have saved the membership untold dollars. But as great as his loss is as an employee, we feel a much greater loss of Monte the person. He always had a story to tell or a bag of his beef jerky or a basket of tomatoes to share. Monte always had a smile on his face and I never heard him say a bad word about anyone. Dave Wagner has submitted a photographic tribute that can be found elsewhere in this issue. We are also planning a celebration of his life here at the Lake for later this summer. If heaven has a water ski team, they just got themselves a heck of ski jumper.
Submitted by: Jan T. Olson – Executive Director
If you need to reach me for anything, please email me at janolson@lakelotawana.net or call the office at 578-4272.