SEQUIM — A familiar face will take the reigns at the Dungeness River Audubon Center come Jan. 1.
The center’s board recently promoted Powell Jones, center education coordinator for nine years, to take over for Bob Boekelheide at the end of the year.
Boekelheide will leave after 10 years as the center’s first and only director.
He said he plans to write books and pursue other interests but will still lead his popular bird watching walks for the center.
“It’s an opportunity for me to continue working where I truly love to work,” Jones said at the center at Railroad Bridge Park, where West Hendrickson Road ends at the river.
“I plan to carry on something that Bob has started. Right now, I am concerned about finishing up what he started. My No. 1 priority is to get him out of here happy.”
Easy choice
Lyn Muench, river center board vice president, said it was a relatively easy choice to name Jones as center director.
“We were lucky to have Powell come to us as an AmeriCorps volunteer in 2003,” Muench said.
“Since then, he has shown us how talented, versatile and dedicated he is. And he is exceptional with children.”
Jones said his youth educational programs have been helped by wife Laura Gould, a biology teacher at Sequim High School, who has helped provide student volunteer “mentors” to aid in instructing younger students from fourth grade up.
“My wife and I kind of work together,” he said. They have a 5-year-old son, Win.
Jones, 34, is the son of longtime Sequim attorney Erwin P. Jones.
Powell Jones graduated from Central Washington University in 2001, earning a bachelor’s degree in geography and environmental studies.
Started as a volunteer
He started out as a center volunteer through the federal AmeriCorps program for a year, then was promoted to educational coordinator position, supported by a Murdoch Charitable Trust grant.
Jones spoke to a group Friday at Railroad Bridge Park’s 10th anniversary celebration, telling them about the youth educational programs, complete with tables covered with equipment and displays showing what the children are taught.
He said he plans to continue promoting Olympic Discovery Trail, which winds through the park and crosses Railroad Bridge, a former train trestle that crosses the river between Sequim and Carlsborg.
“This is a very loved park,” Jones said, adding that he wants to raise awareness about it and lure more volunteers to help keep the acreage pristine and a beautiful place to visit.
“Volunteers are the lifeblood of this place,” he said.
“The staff gets credit, but without volunteers, we are nothing.”
Upon Boekelheide’s departure, the staff will drop to two for awhile, Jones said, but an internship may be created to boost staff.
“I’d like to see more summer programs . . . but that’s contingent on help,” he said.
He’s interested in creating programs for bicyclers and fishermen, both recreational activities that Jones said he loves.
He is a fly fisherman on North Olympic Peninsula waterways and a mountain biker, mostly using trails on Miller Peninsula state forest land at Diamond Point.
A firm believer in volunteering to help maintain what he uses, Jones said he frequently works on the many Miller Peninsula trails he uses.
Unique environment
As a youth educator, Jones said he is proud that the center’s programs focus on the unique environment of the North Olympic Peninsula.
“We take the kids for trips on the Peninsula and show them what’s under the water,” Jones said.
“I love that you can turn over a rock and show them a bug and that will tell you something about the river.”
Jones encourages those who would like to volunteer for the river center and Railroad Bridge Park to phone him at 360-681-4076 or email rctech@olympus.net.
Volunteers who work with him include his mother, Diane Jones, and his former Sequim High School biology teacher, Shirley Anderson.
“I’m so incredibly proud that I get to help a place where I grew up,” he said.
Muench said the center’s administrative coordinator, Valerie Wolcott, would also be adding to her responsibilities to help Jones.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
