Aug. 11--CLOUDCROFT >> About 180 children and their parents enjoyed a lazy Saturday afternoon coloring and learning about fire prevention at Smokey Bear 69th birthday party.
Children were able to learn and make different animal tracks with sand imprints, compete in a coloring contest and enjoy cake and balloons while learning about fire prevention at the Lincoln National Forest's Sacramento Ranger Station.
Lois Cadwallader, support services specialist with the U.S. Forest Service, said the celebration is one of the biggest events the station conducts each year.
"We try to make it a fun family day," Cadwallader said. "It's really neat to see because it is a time when parents and grandparents can sit down with their kids. I think they have as much fun as the kids."
She said the event was for families, but the Smokey Bear campaign is geared for people of all ages.
"Fire prevention-wise, it's mostly campfires," she said. "Because we are mostly dealing with campers, it is just reminding that a lot of fires our firefighters put out are from either the hundreds of lightning strikes or the abandoned camp fires that are there every year."
The ranger station's bookstore donates money to the Forest Service for the food, cake and coloring-contest prizes. She said the other prizes given to
children were funded through the Forest Service's Fire Prevention Program.
"It allows us to educate them while they are having fun, and it educates the parents at the same time," Cadwallader said. "And it gets some fire prevention messages out and they all love seeing Smokey."
According to Smokey Bear's official Twitter profile, his actual birthday celebration was Friday, but Cadwallader said the celebration is usually conducted at the station on Saturday for children and parents to enjoy.
"It's not the birthday of the bear they found in the woods," She said. "It's the birthday of when they started the advertising campaign, which, I believe, happened before they actually found the real bear in the woods. They already had the campaign and then they later found the bear."
The real Smokey was a small cub rescued from a fire in 1950 in Capitan. After news of the cub spread, the state game warden at the time wrote a letter to the chief of the Forest Service to have the small cub become the living symbol of Smokey Bear. The cub was given a permanent home at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., according to the Smokey Bear website.
"His middle name is not 'the.' His name is Smokey Bear. To make the song work, they put 'the' in there. In the song, it's Smokey the Bear, but his name is actually Smokey Bear."
Cheryl and Gary Adams spent some time at the birthday party with their three grandchildren.
"It was something to do today," Cheryl said. "We brought our youngest, who is 4 years old. We thought he would enjoy this."
Zaira Roberts travelled from Alamogordo with her three sons, her sister and her three daughters to attend the birthday celebration for the first time.
"They love it. They are making their best," Roberts said about her children competing in the coloring competition. "I really like it. I think it's a great opportunity for all the kids to celebrate his birthday."
Copyright 2013 - Alamogordo Daily News, N.M.
