Tue, Dec 02 2008
|
Published July 16, 2008 10:27 am - Cody VanDonselar and Taylor Parks take a break Monday afternoon while working for the Mahaska County Conservation Board at White Oak Conservation Area. They are summer interns for the MCCB. Working in The Great Outdoors By DUANE NOLLEN The Oskaloosa Herald ROSE HILL — Taylor Parks and Cody VanDonselar enjoy the outdoors and they have found the perfect summer job as interns for the Mahaska County Conservation Board. VanDonselar, 16, will be a junior at North Mahaska High School this fall and Parks, 16, will be a junior at Oskaloosa High School. They’re interning with the conservation board through the Urban Youth Corps program. They work a 40-hour week from Monday through Thursday and get paid the minimum wage. The pair were working at White Oak Conservation Area Monday afternoon repairing a 240-foot fence line between the park and a neighboring farm. “Today, we’re fixing fence,” VanDonselar said. They have done “a lot of mowing and clearing. We’ll do maintenance too. We go all over the parks.” They both agree that they prefer to work outdoors. “I wanted to work outside and I didn’t figure the indoors would work good for me,” VanDonselar said. “I prefer working outdoors than indoors,” Parks said. “I live in town. I’ve always wanted to live in the country.” She added that there is always something new to do when working for the conservation board. “I’ve never done anything with a fence,” she said. VanDonselar and Parks were replacing old strands of barbed wire and driving in some new fence posts. They had some trouble with a short metal fence post. Parks decided to use a post stamper to jostle the post back and forth to make it easy for VanDonselar to pull out. “She’s an innovator,” he quipped. Parks said they don’t have a lot of training for their jobs. They get some instruction before they go to the work site. “Carrie Bond is our supervisor,” Parks said. “There’s always somebody out here with us.” VanDonselar said their day begins at 6 a.m., but he did not get to White Oak Conservation Area until 9 a.m. “We had to pick up some stuff at the lumber yard … some fence posts and staples,” he said. A typical day for them begins at 6 a.m. and goes to 4:30 p.m. 
•
Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.
More from the At Random section
Louise Phillips: knitting for good causes 'I just went crazy over the sound' |
Print this story
E-mail this story
Post to del.icio.us
Discuss this story
 |
 |
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
|
|
© 2008, Oskaloosa Herald Oskaloosa, Iowa |
|
Popular Business directory links - Oskaloosa Apartments | Oskaloosa Attorneys | Oskaloosa Auto Dealers | Oskaloosa Auto Parts | Oskaloosa Auto Repair | Oskaloosa Beauty Salons | Oskaloosa Car Rental | Oskaloosa Dentists | Oskaloosa Doctors | Oskaloosa Flowers | Oskaloosa Hotels | Oskaloosa Insurance | Oskaloosa Loans | Oskaloosa Mortgages | Oskaloosa Movers | Oskaloosa Pizza | Oskaloosa Realtors | Oskaloosa Restaurants | Oskaloosa Storage | Oskaloosa Tax Preparation | Oskaloosa Travel | Oskaloosa Featured | More...
|
|
Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. • CNHI Classified Advertising Network • CNHI News Service |