Langlade County Waterways Association awards key members

ANTIGO — At its June 15 meeting, the Langlade County Waterways Association presented a plaque recognizing the conservation contributions of several of its longtime members.

The plaque held engravings with the names of the members being recognized, which included Sonny and Mimi Wreczycki, June Tomany, Chuck Sleeter, and Lori Regni.

Current LCWA Secretary Kay Provance spoke about the work each of the members had performed for the organization, and introduced each of them by naming the lakes they lived near.

Tomany, from the Big Twin Lake area, was the LCWA secretary for 11 years. Provance said she had “done more for this county than any of us could ever know or realize.”

Provance said Mimi Wreczycki of the Rolling Stone Lake area, meanwhile, had been the organization’s treasurer for 20 years, and spoke at length about the work of Wreczycki’s husband Sonny.

“Most impressively in my opinion, he not only worked with groups to clear invasive species, but searched on his own in areas he knew no one else was looking at,” Provance said. “He learned by trial and error how to eradicate different species and consistently chopped away at invasive species for 17 years until the time of his death in 2016. I believe he’s a large reason why people now know how to deal with different species.”

Provance said Sleeter has been the longest-tenured LCWA office holder.

“He is our own vice chair even to this moment from Pickerel Crane,” she said. “He was a vice chair for 11 years, and then a chair for 10 years, and then vice chair again until present, making him the only active member, let alone board member, for 25 years continuously.”

She said Regni had presided as chair of the LCWA for 11 years.

“She was hugely responsible for controlling the aquatic invasive species in our county,” Provance said. “She set up such an important and impressive plan and network of reporting that not only did she get nominated for a governor’s council award and was copied at least in part by many other counties and the DNR, but is still talked about as I mentioned in the natural resources department of universities to this day.”

Provance said that because of the efforts of the dedicated members that were recognized, the LCWA, begun in 1999, has continually preserved and improved the county’s waterways.

“They became this bridge of communication both for and between other agencies, counties, lake associations, and districts, as well as state and local governments,” she said. “They did this by attending meetings, seminars, trainings and establishing a lake report, keeping track of local and state laws pertaining to waterways, communicating public concern to law-making agencies, reporting invasive species, organizing task forces between groups, and becoming the most comprehensive source of communication within the county.”

According to Provance, the next LCWA meeting is July 20 at 9 a.m. at the Nebokan School Forest Environmental Education and Community Center, where Langlade County Forest Administrator Al Murray will speak about the effect of forestry on the county’s waterways.

To learn more about the LCWA, email langladewaterways@gmail.com or go to www.facebook.com/langladewaterways.