A TRIBUTE TO ONE OF OUR OWN

The New Hampshire Court Reporters Association held its fall seminar the weekend of October 14-16, 2011.  Its theme was “Heroes Among and Within Us – a 9/11 Tribute.”

When fellow court reporter Julie Brandau was killed in an Atlanta courtroom in 2005, Jan Garnett Lopez, RPR, decided to honor her memory by forming the Julie Brandau Community Service Memorial Project in partnership with the Search Dog Foundation.  The Search Dog Foundation rescues dogs from shelters and trains them to assist in search-and-rescue missions whenever a disaster occurs at home or around the globe. Those in attendance were fortunate enough to watch a live demonstration of these dogs in action by Lt. Chet Clark and his dog, Elvis, from Oklahoma and Lt. Patti Krafft and her dog, Hula, from Dallas.

It costs $10,000 to train a dog to become one of the elite few, from rescue to evaluation to rigorous training and eventually FEMA certification.  NCRA members, through their generous donations, have given over $63,000, enough to sponsor six dogs, in Julie’s memory.  One of the dogs sponsored by NCRA, Pearl, was named ASPCA’s 2010 Dog of the Year.

A new facility is being planned that will house these rescued dogs and give them the medical care and rigorous training they need to prepare them for any circumstance they may encounter in the field.

If you would like to help, or if you would like more information, please  visit www.searchdogfoundation.org.

Other seminar speakers included Danny Deters and his involvement with the New York Says Thank You Foundation; JoAnne Schottler, Care Package Coordinator for Pease Greeters; Meg Heckman, author of We Went to War; Camille Palladino-Duffy, LCR, RPR, who spoke about the history of the American flag; and Bianca Monroe from the American Red Cross who spoke about emergency preparedness.