So what’s the major milestone? Would you believe, Green Creek will be 25 years old on May 6^th, 2009. That’s the official date of our founding……May 6, 1984. Many of you know that Green Creek began its humble beginnings back in the mid 70’s when Jim Schroeder was a 7^th grader at Gibsonburg Junior High. I’ve told this story many times over the past 25 years so I’ll just give a brief synopsis of our history.

Jim showed up at Portage Trail Park one summer (as a 7^th grader) and asked if he could go birding in the park. I kind of laughed and said sure. He returned hours later to thank me and ask if he could return next weekend. I noticed he had a notebook with him and I asked why the notebook. He explained that he was keeping track of the birds he observed…….this was, after all, migration season and birds have a tendency to follow major river corridors on their flight north. (I didn’t know that at the time!) I looked at the list and could not believe what he saw……I didn’t even know these birds existed! Well, the following week I walked with him through the woods. A whole new world appeared. We continued our hikes for several years. Jim graduated from high school, attended Hocking Tech, and continued his nature/wildlife studies.

Then along came Dave Kohler, Corinne Schaeffer, Joe Sarnes, Gerry Damschroder and Steve Bowers……7^th graders that listened to my stories about Jim Schroeder. They wanted to do the same things.The five of us started meeting every Saturday to go birding somewhere. Before long we were skipping study halls at school and running all over the place birding. These five individuals, during their senior year, decided we needed to form an organization so that other kids could enjoy what they had. We met at the cabin on May 6^th, 1984 and began the process of forming Green Creek Wildlife Society.