Smokey Bear celebrates 70th birthday
<p>Smokey Bear waves to the crowd during the Huckleberry Festival's Parade in Trout Creek on Saturday. Smokey celebrated his 70th birthday at the ranger office in Plains on Friday.</p>
PLAINS – The bear himself was on hand to meet members of the public and join with Forest Service staff in celebrating his 70th birthday.
Smokey Bear celebrated the milestone with cake, public service announcements and education information on preventing forest fires last week in Plains.
The United States Forest Service came together on Friday, Aug. 8 to celebrate the momentous event for the face of fire prevention.
From 10 a.m. to noon Smokey spent time celebrating with Forest Service staff and members of the community at the Plains/Thompson Falls Ranger District Office in Plains.
The Forest Service, the National Association of State Foresters and the Ad Council created Smokey Bear in 1944, in partnership with FCB West.
According to the Ad Council, Smokey is still the center of one of the longest running and most successful public service announcements campaigns in United States government history 70 years later.
“Today we are celebrating 70 years of fire prevention,” said U.S. Forest Service Public Information Officer John Hamilton.
Hamilton stated Smokey has proved to be a very effective tool for educating the public on the dangers of forest fires and effective steps to prevent these scenarios.
The public information officer continued on how Smokey’s popularity with younger members of the community has always been quite high throughout the history of the PSA campaign.
“He has almost become a kind of mythical creature over the years,” Hamilton said.
According to Hamilton, the Plains/Thompson Falls Ranger District hosted an event to mark Smokey’s 65th birthday five years ago.
However, the previous event was smaller in scale than the ongoing celebration of the friendly bear’s 70th year as the face of fire prevention.
The centerpiece of the morning celebration was Smokey himself, but the bear was joined by an expansive collection of vintage memorabilia donated to the Forest Service by Hubert L. Campbell Jr.
Hamilton noted the donated collection covered a wide range of Smokey’s history, featuring a wide variety of different items dating back to the inception of the popular federal program.
“They weren’t even making a lot of toys then,” Hamilton said, pointing to a vintage teddy bear from Smokey’s first years as a spokesman for the forests of the nation.
Julie Molzahn of the Forest Service said several of the items of display were works by Rudy Wendelin.
Wendelin was a Forest Service employee who became one of the best-known artists involved with the Smokey Bear campaign.
A number of pins, patches, postcards and artwork depicting the famous bear were also on display outside of the ranger district office.
According to Hamilton the display will be up at the fairgrounds during the Sanders County Fair at the end of the month.
“We are celebrating and sharing educational ideas today,” Molzahn said.
Friday’s celebration was all about education and there were even a number of items students might need for the coming school year, including pencils and erasers, available as gifts for those in attendance.
Hamilton added the national approach to handling wildfires has altered over the years due to the recognition of the potential benefits of small-scale fires to wilderness ecosystems.
Nevertheless, the Forest Service’s stance regarding the damaging effects of man-made wildfires has remained resolute and is a message Smokey has helped to convey to the public for 70 years.
“Smokey is all about prevention, education and safety,” Hamilton said.l