KAMO – March, 2025 Newsletter
For comments related to this document, contact Mike

President?s message – Hello to all KAMO members and friends of KAMO!
This is Kids And Mentors President, Mark Walters with my monthly update and
there is a lot to say. First, hey Dwaine Drewa ya old fart! Congrats on winning this year’s President’s Award for KAMO. Dwaine was at the first meeting for The Northwoods Chapter
back in 2007 and has been a rock for KAMO ever since, well deserved my friend.
Second, there will be more on this later but at the State Members Meeting we made the decision to hire a grant writer. There will be more on that down the road but we have found a person “hello Madison” and we will update you as this progresses.
Third and this is very important, we have hired someone to run our “state facebook page” hello Sidney”. There will be more on this but basically, we are going to get aggressive on marketing KAMO through fb as in positive, high energy posts from each chapter that will be sent
to Sidney. I am not big on telling chapters what to do, but in this case, once we get this ball rolling, failure is not an option.
I am currently the President and cofounder of Necedah Outdoor Adventure Club, though I am a Neanderthal, I write a post about every 3 weeks that goes on Necedah’s community page and NOAC has grown so fast it is literally unbelievable. I can honestly say that “I am a learned
man” I write positive updates about NOAC and our events and mostly,projects/income and core group are growing faster than corn in July.
Fourth, Mike Brown and I spoke at The Radisson Hotel in Lacrosse to the Upper Mississippi River Conservation Committee where we were one of 2 organizations honored that will receive a cash award.
Fifth, Like last year, KAMO will be holding an all chapters raffle. Bob Brodeur, Jeff Moll, Rick Miotke and myself are putting it together. There has been a new change in govt policy on raffles and due to that our prizes will not be over $500.00 a piece but there will be several from $50.00 to $500.00 we should be delivering tickets in May.
This weekend is The Youth Turkey Hunt, I will be camping and participating with several young hunters and folks – that is why we do what we do!
As always, thank you for doing what you do for KAMO! Mark

KAMO 2025 State Convention – The notes from the March meeting in Stevens Point were emailed out to all around April 3rd. If you feel that you did not receive these notes, please let Mike know.

Website – Mike is looking for someone else in the group who would be willing to suggest edits to improve the website quality a few times a year. If while reading the website pages something catches anyone?s attention, please contact me (Mike).anyone.

Chapter Reports
Baraboo – The Baraboo River Chapter of KAMO held our monthly meeting and Mentor Appreciation Meal on Monday March 10th at the River’s Edge in WI Dells. It is a nice way to show appreciation for all the Mentors who volunteer their time on getting Kids Outdoors and the meeting was well attended. We are following some suggestions and started a ?Then & Now? board to showcase past KAMO Kids and to see where they are now. Members are encouraged to bring pictures to future meetings, and this will continuously be updated. Dwaine confirmed that we did send out Thank You?s for the Joe Hunt sponsors/donations and did receive notification back from a few that they received. Our Chapter reported 83 hours of getting Kids Outdoors during the past month. We did send our funds to UW Stevens Point to provide a Scholarship for the 2025/2026 school year. We are proud to support a student in an Outdoor Area of Study and had a discussion of the reduced Federal funding.
We are holding a fundraiser ?Food Truck? event on Saturday May 10th at Holiday Shores in WI Dells. AJ is the coordinator of this event and details are being worked on now. Our annual campout will be held June 27th?29th at Castle Rock County park. The Dodge County Chapter of KAMO will again be joining the fun. We are also working on plans to join the Lake Wisconsin Chapter in hosting a Fishing Event in Merrimac. Looking at dates in June or July with more information to come. The State KAMO meeting will be held March 29th where they will discuss the MOHER Outdoor Expo in Portage May 13?15th and the WI Waterfowl Expo August 22nd & 23rd where they are looking for volunteers. Rich has ordered several KAMO decals for clothing and will be donating them to our Chapter. Our next meeting will be held Monday April 14th at the River’s Edge in the Wisconsin Dells.

Thanks,
Greg

Coulee – Mark Walters and Mike attended the Upper Mississippi River Conservation Committee’s annual convention in La Crosse and spoke during a 20 minute segment. The content was mainly about how KAMO got started and what we are up to these days.
Randy, Victor, and a kamokid scouted a new property for the turkey hunt of April 12th-13th. They put up a blind.
Upcoming activities (listed on website) – April 12 – 13th -Youth Turkey, April 18th – Trip to Fishing Float – kids day off of school, Forest Bathing – April 26th, May 17th – option to help at the Genoa Fish Hatchery Kids Fishing Day, the summer edition of the Kraig Hoff Fishing Event – June 7th?, Bugs event (dragonfly)- June 26th, pontoon rides – July 15th. The newly formed Izaak Walton League in the area just contacted us about combining resources during a June Outdoor Activity day.
Mike is working with a graphics shop to produce a one third page, cardstock piece that features a KAMO logo, 16 thumbnail activity photos, some narrative, and a QR code to link to our website. This is intended for use by any chapter that wants to distribute them in their area. Intended to be a KAMO promotion targeting communities near an existing chapter.
Our chapter received a donation of 58 musky lures from the local Muskies Inc. Chapter. These came just after we met in Stevens Point (or I would have brought them there). If any chapters feel that they would put some of these to use while working with kids, I (Mike) can send some your way.

Dodge County Conservation – DCC KAMO . Busy month for us. We made a few more contacts in the area and I think they will turn out to be a win win for our KAMO chapter, We took 6 of our kids on a LTH pheasant hunt at Tanglewood ranch and hunt club , Pass it on Outdoors and the Izaak Walton league of SW Wisconsin were the Host and fun was had regardless of the weather.
We held another Hunters safety class and 20 students passed with flying colors. I really want to thank the Beaver Dam Conservation Club for the use of their facility. To the Instructors that put in their time to teach our future men and women how to do things safely and Ethically. To Marcos pizza for lunch on Saturday. And to all the Parents and or grandparents the made sure everyone was on time and completed their homework as well,
Then we ended the month with a Bowling Party. 40+ kids attended and I think we had some new kids fill out our forms as well. A lot of Questions about What does KAMO do and ?how come we never heard of you before?? We are making strides in other communities and we are definitely making sure they know what KAMO does and who we are. We are always looking for new mentors. Our monthly meeting is held the last Tuesday of the Month at Tower Lanes in Beaver Dam 6 pm.
Get a kid outside and see what happens.
Jim B

Lake Wisconsin – Some kids were taken out shed hunting in March.

Meadow Valley – We had a youth member participate in collecting and processing maple syrup.
Working on the youth turkey hunt. Started planning for the youth bear hunt.

Thank You,

Jim

Northwoods – Hello from the Northwoods,
Our group raised $750 from the sale of 50/50 tickets at our local uphill truck drags event on March 8th. We will be holding a meeting later this month to decide a date for the mountain bike raffle at the local school. Our annual summer fishing event will be on July 12th this year. We also have a couple of folks interested in becoming mentors and they will be invited to our next meeting. My daughter has the logo now and will be working on the “Proud Sponsor” plaques for all of our wonderful sponsors!
Good things ahead!

Johnny Johnson from Florence Wisconsin.