This was the first year Dwayne WY7FD and I participated with our local club for Field Day, and I'm so glad we did! We located our event in Sundance (home of the Sundance Kid) at the Fairgrounds - an excellent public location, directly across the street from Crook County EOC. As the Communications Officer for the County, it was an excellent opportunity to partner the County Emergency Management with our local ham club. Club Field Day organizer Jerry Boone, WY7JB was focused on getting kids involved this year - and his efforts paid off! We had a group of scouts that spent the weekend and camped out with us. He created a Passport to Ham Radio Adventure for the kids to use - they had to go to each station and witness a contact. We had stations for Voice, Morse Code, RTTY, PSK, Satellite and of course, the GOTA station.

We had  visits from several elected officials who were all very impressed. Countless times we heard "I had no idea of all you can do!" and "Wow, this is really suprisingly technological." 

One highlight that occured after Field Day was over -- a local resident who recognized the importance of the communications side of Emergency Management made a $500 donation to our County EOC specifically for the Communications Trailer. 

We had one young man test and earn his license and another who became very interested in becoming a ham. Lots of kids really jazzed about ham radio - all in all, a successful event.

This year was not about the number of contacts, but more about the community. The community of ham radio operators working together; the community of sharing a hobby and service that we love; and the community seeing ham radio in action.