A Brief History of the Robert E. Browning, Jr. Fire Prevention Award.

James C. Sorenson, USFS, Retired
March, 2006

Region Eight once had a fire management news letter entitled “Incidentals”. The Seventh Edition, in April of 1990, had the following note to introduce a new fire prevention award; one that could be sought and achieved by on-the-ground workers close to home:

• Region Eight has instituted a new forest fire prevention award, called "THE CLYDE". One "Clyde" per year will be made available to each state and each national forest in the Region, on a purely voluntary basis. Its purpose is to recognize exceptional prevention efforts at the local level; the kind of effort which may not compete successfully for a national Smokey Bear award, but still warrants notice.
  
  The Fire Chief/Fire Staff for the state/forest will decide if anyone in their units have performed some prevention activity which is due special recognition. If so, a call to Jim Sorenson, (404) 347-4243, is all it will take to obtain a "Clyde".

The award itself consists of a 7-1/2 inch tall statuette of a firefighter leaning on a Pulaski, and a walnut base which bears a brass plate saying "For Outstanding Efforts in Fire Prevention, Region 8".

It is hoped that this special recognition will generate a new, higher level of interest in forest fire prevention efforts. It is worth mentioning that this award is for actions, while the annual prevention contest mentioned above is for ideas.

The Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Campaign, administered jointly by the USDA Forest Service, the National Association of State Foresters, and the Advertising Council, has spent many dollars to spread its message to the public. It is widely recognized however, that much of the program’s effectiveness is due to energetic work by these agencies’ field workers. In recognition of this fact, the CFFP campaign administrators have annually presented various levels of national awards to personnel who have demonstrated exceptional interest in the success of the program.

Most prestigious of the CFFP awards is the “Golden Smokey”. It was originally presented only to organizations, but that eventually changed, and individuals could also aspire to get it by performing special activities. Normally, only 3 or 4 Golden Smokey awards were given in any year.

The “Silver Smokey” was originally designed to recognize extraordinary prevention by individuals or small groups; and there were only 7 or 8 presented each year.

The final level of national recognition for individuals was “The Plaque”, a colorful certificate affixed to a walnut board, and covered with plexi-glass. Ten of these were issued per year. The Plaque was replaced by the “Bronze Smokey” a number of years ago, probably with the idea that the prevention awards should relate to the three levels of Olympic awards.

All of these national CFFP awards were the subject of considerable competition and, because only about two dozen were presented each year, much commendable effort went unrecognized. In addition, these awards were heavily weighted toward work that affected state-wide or nation-wide populations. It was the rare prevention effort done in local schools or county-wide settings that made it through the selection process. Because of this, it was felt that Region Eight should find some way to reward prevention efforts at the local level. The best person to evaluate the quality of this work was the State Fire Chief or the Forest Fire Management Officer. It was decided that each state and each national forest in the region should be allowed to recognize the work of one individual or group each year.

The question arose as to how to recognize the workers and what the award should look like. It was clear that Smokey Bear statues could not be used. Something else had to be found, and it should be recognized as related to forest fire management. Attempting to fill this need, in April of 1989 the author of this article finished carving a small figure of a fire fighter from a piece of basswood.

This would be the basis for the award, but a way had to be found to replicate it enough times to make it available as an award for potentially 28 people per year. Extensive searching resulted in locating a company near Knoxville, Tennessee that produced castings from a mixture of resin and ground pecan shells. An order was placed for 100 of these, and the work of making the awards was under way.

It was decided that the castings would be painted silver and affixed to a base made of walnut that had a plate stating the reason for the award; “For Outstanding Efforts in Fire Prevention. Region 8”.

Walnut of sufficient thickness and quality was not easy to locate, but collegues in two states, Tennessee and Missouri, donated enough to get the program started. The resulting award looked like this:

It seemed right that the unique Region 8 award should have a unique name, so Mac Gramley, newly assigned to the regional office, was asked to come up with one. His suggestion “The Clyde” was accepted, and invitations to submit names for the first awardees were sent out.

The region placed no restrictions on what prevention activities could be recognized; this was left up to the approving official of each state or national forest.

Over the period of several years, re-orders of the castings were made, but suppliers went out of business, changed the materials used in the castings, and generally caused problems with procuring consistent models. Although it is possible to know how many castings were ordered, the high percentage of “culls” and breakage during shipment, make it impossible to estimate the number that actually got into the hands of workers. The only way to determine that is to review records made at the time of presentations, and those are not available to this writer, (other than those given out in the first year, 1990.)

In addition to the walnut-based statuette, recipients of the award get a certificate stating the nature of the award. This was because, in some instances, the award was given to groups of workers, with only one statuette available. The individual members of the group each received a certificate, while the statuette was displayed at their headquarters. The certificate has undergone several design changes. An example, after the change of name:

That same issue of “Incidentals” cited above also contained the following description of an important event for fire prevention workers in the East:

The first ever CONFERENCE ON FIRE PREVENTION in the eastern United States was held in Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 12-15, 1990. It was sponsored by Regions 8 & 9 and the Northeast Area of the U.S. Forest Service and the state foresters of the 33 states covered by this area.

The keynote address was presented by Congressman Curt Weldon, of Pennsylvania, who is the chairman of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus. His presentation set the tone for the meeting. Other speakers at the conference included individuals from the legal, academic, research, law enforcement, communications, marketing, and natural resource management fields. Topics ranged through all aspects of the prevention effort to provide a wide variety of approaches to spreading the prevention message.

Because of his work for the fire community in general, and in particular for his participation in this conference, Congressman Weldon was presented a “Clyde”, the first one to be awarded to anyone. The rest of the first-year recipients are listed in the Appendix following this article. In subsequent years, a limited number of the awards went to other prevention workers who were not in Region Eight. An example is the one that was presented to Al and Sylvia Grimes, a couple from New Hampshire well-known for preserving so much of the history of Smokey Bear and sharing it with people throughout the country.

The name of the award, “The Clyde”, had been the subject of some discussion since it was first adopted. There were those who felt it lacked a sense of dignity expected of an award for important prevention work. Lewis Kearney, Fire Management Officer for the Cherokee National Forest, talked this writer about the issue in August of 1994. Lewis suggested that the award be re-named to honor Robert E. Browning, Jr., a fire fighter from Region 8 who had perished during the Storm King Mountain incident the previous month. The change was readily accepted. Ruth C. Radford, Mr. Browning’s mother, wrote a nice letter to the Director of Fire & Aviation Management, expressing her gratitude and appreciation for the honor to the memory of her son.

As indicated above, it was anticipated that approximately 28 of the awards would be presented each year. Because the program has been in effect for 15 years or so, that would indicate that more than 400 statuettes could be gracing the mantels of prevention workers throughout the region. Less than 250 have been produced to date, (March, 2006); so it is obvious that the full quota for each year has not been met. Reasons for this are varied. One fire manager stated that he did not want to participate in the program, but wanted all of his prevention people to aspire to win one of the national CFFP awards. This was a laudable goal, but the reality of the situation was that the odds were very much against many of his people being recognized at the national level. So, much fine work may have gone unacknowledged. Of course, it is not wise to simply pass out an award each year because one is available. If a fire manager feels that his team has not done notable work, he should not cheapen the award by doing so.

Appendix

The Eighth Issue of “Incidentals”, (August 1990), listed the first 16 recipients of the Award, which was still known as “The Clyde”:

• Congressman Kurt Weldon, 7th District of Pennsylvania, was awarded the first "Clyde" for his efforts on behalf of the fire service community across the United States. (This was a special presentation; the Congressman is not from Region 8).
• Hal Tonsgard, National Forests in Florida, for his fire prevention efforts.
• Bob Johnson, Florida Division of Forestry, for service with several fire prevention councils; for design and construction of prevention exhibits; and for prevention campaigns conducted at the local level.
• Jim Dale, Tennessee Division of Forestry, for designing and implementing a statewide burning permit plan; for creating public service announcements in cooperation with celebrities on the television program "Hee Haw"; and for participating as an instructor in the state's wildfire investigation school.
• Linda Ross, Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Forestry Division, for work in Fire Cause Determination training, and Prevention out-reach efforts at local public events.
• Glandon Newton, Kentucky Division of Forestry, for his personal contributions to Fire Prevention through newspaper articles, radio spots, personal contacts, and work with local volunteer fire departments.
• Jack Wengert, Ouachita National Forest, for his efforts to promote prevention using Smokey at the annual Ft. Smith Rodeo, as part of the "Smokey and the American Cowboy" program.
• M. T. Parker, Mississippi Forestry Commission, for his efforts in Fire Prevention in the Southeast District of Mississippi, in the fields of law enforcement, personal contacts, and programs before agricultural, civic, and religious groups.
• Horace Jarrett, National Forests in Mississippi, for development of the Forest Watch Program, similar to a Neighborhood Watch Program; and his cooperative efforts with local sheriffs' departments.
• Miera Crawford, Ozark-St. Francis National Forest, for her enthusiasm and activities in Fire Prevention, and participation in the Smokey Sports Program.
• Ed Stiles, Cherokee National Forest, for implementation of the Smokey Sports Program at the local; production and distribution of trading cards, posters, calendars, etc. featuring local high school athletes; and participation in local Special Olympics to promote Fire Prevention.
• Charles Sikes, Alabama Forestry Commission, for work with local volunteer fire departments to promote Fire Prevention; and for starting a local tax initiative used to support VFD's.
• Mark Luellen, North Carolina Division of Forest Resources, for his activity in local school prevention programs; initiating a Smokey and the American Cowboy program at a local rodeo; participation in local parades and other community celebrations with Smokey; and for work with local media to dispense the Fire Prevention message.
• Jim Sexton, South Carolina Forestry Commission, for the activities conducted by the Public Information Staff to prevent the start of wildfires after the destruction caused by Hurricane Hugo.
• John Stallard, Jefferson National Forest, for installation and maintenance of prevention signing; presentation of local school prevention programs; and distribution of prevention materials by work crews in developed recreation areas.
• Lea Wofford, Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, for work with local schools in presenting prevention programs; participation in local parades with Smokey; and for expanding the area of influence covered by the District in Fire Prevention.

It would be nice to be able to list all of the subsequent winners of the award, but I only have one more list, for 1999:

• David Frazier, George Washington & Jefferson National Forests
• Robert E. Leonard, Tennessee Division of Forestry
• Christopher Thomsen, Virginia Department of Forestry
• Thomas B. Hewell, Georgia Forestry Commission
• Alan Colwell, Daniel Boone National Forest
• Warren Rowan, National Forests in Florida
• Douglas E. Stiles, Cherokee National Forest
• Roger Freeman, Arkansas Forestry Commission
• Gary W. Jarvis, Talladega National Forest
• James T. Blott, Texas Forest Service
• Kaye Norman, Kentucky Division of Forestry

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That same issue of “Incidentals” raised a question of some related Fire Prevention recognition:

Before the "Clyde" there was "THE SAM BEICHLER AWARD"? In among the bits of litter that have escaped being tossed out during the many moves and cleaning frenzies which have afflicted the Fire and Aviation shop over the last few years was found a black and white photo in a frame. It hasn't attracted much attention; it's just another picture of Smokey on a stand. Or is it? The award appears to have been a "one of a kind" item; a wooden carving of The Bear, standing behind a plaque upon which is engraved: "For Achievement in Forest Fire Prevention"

Along the left side of the plaque, arranged one under the other, are the dates 1961 through 1970, with space behind each for a name. No names have been engraved, which suggests that the award was never given; or that an early awardee took it home, and kept it. A metal plate at the bottom of the stand reads, "THE SAM BEICHLER AWARD, U. S. FOREST SERVICE, R-8". It is sad to say that no one in the office can now identify the person for whom the award is named, or name any of the awardees. However, some phone calls to selected retirees resulted in some interesting information. It turns out that this award was the handiwork of woodcarver Jim Cartwright, who retired in 1967, after serving in the Region's "CM2 Program" (the old name for "Coop Fire"). The person honored by the naming of the award, Sam Beichler, was the director of that unit at the time.

The award was given to state forestry organizations which had demonstrated exceptional prevention efforts during the year. A grading system was used, and in at least one instance the governor accepted the award for the winning state.

The only question left is where the Sam Beichler Award is today? If anyone can answer that question, please let us know.