I'm a 55-year old geocacher from Blue Grass (Quad-Cities) who is interested in representing the interests of both finders and hiders. I will soon be at 1,000 finds and have placed nearly 240 caches. I have actively cached in 8 states and in Canada. Some of you may know me from my column in the IGO newsletters, and I've met a number of others on the trails or at geocache events.

I work as an agency manager for Modern Woodmen of America, a nationwide fraternal financial services organization. As we continue to grow our agency in parts of Iowa and Illinois, I am travelling more, which enables me to find more caches in more areas! I have a grown son, Andrew, who is an attorney in Iowa City. His cache name is Hawkeyelaw, and he is the one who got me interested in caching. His wife, Elizabeth, is also an attorney, who works in the College for Public Health at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She's not a cacher, but we still have hopes for her.

I've made some good friends in geocaching in both Iowa and Illinois, which was a benefit I didn't anticipate when I started caching. It's great to have another set of eyes along, especially when the other person thinks a bit differently, which can make the finding easier.

A main interest of mine right now is to promote the hiding of geocaches in Iowa. With gas prices currently a concern and the fact that many cachers are having to travel longer distances to find new caches , I would like to see more caches closer to home for our members. With probably the highest number of hides of any cacher in Iowa, I am familiar with a number of cache-hiding issues. I'd like to facilitate education in the making, hiding and placing of geocaches, particularly in working with land management organizations for responsible caching. Many county conservation directors are making a good effort to learn about and to promote caching, and I'd like to see that continue and grow as we've seen in some of the jointly-sponsored event caches this year that involved both IGO members and county naturalists. There appears to be more interest now on the part of park naturalists to grow geocaching in their areas, but they also need our help in educating them about caching and to work with them in ways that allow them to work effectively with their superiors on the conservation boards. Thank you.

I am married, I am 43 years old, and have a daughter. (She geocaches by the name Bekitty11.) I am an air traffic controller currently working in Moline, Illinois. I have been geocaching since March of 2005. I love this sport, the use of technology, the people involved in it, and all of the places it takes me! I am interested in helping promote our sport within Iowa. I am most interested in ensuring that personalities don’t interfere with our sport. The beauty of geocaching is that the sport can exist in different ways for different people. Some like a serious mental challenges. Some like a nice hike over difficult terrain with an ammo can at the end. To some this sport is about the numbers. There is room here for everyone, and there is room for a wide variety of opinions. I hope that if elected I can help IGO promote the sport and all of its variety. We need to remember the first rule. We do this for enjoyment and to have fun! I want to be part of an organization and a sport that accepts all people and their opinions. I won’t encourage individuals that would condemn someone because they don’t share the same vision (as they do) of what this sport should be.

Where did “CC8C4” come from? My wife discovered geocaching first and created this account. Air Traffic Controllers are identified by their initials. Cindy’s initials were “CC”. Airports are identified by 3 or 4 characters. ORD- Chicago O’Hare. DSM- Des Moines. 8C4-Tipton. So, CC8C4!

Hi from Spothors!
I'm a candiate for the IGO board from western Iowa and I'd appreciate your vote. I got my first GPS for Mother's Day in May of 2003 and have been caching ever since. I enjoy the outdoors and the fantastic places that caching has taken me. I've seen and been places I'd never have known about if not for geocaching. But, all of you already know that feeling. My family thought I was nuts when I first started this but, as of Saturday, all of them have now succumbed to the bug. My daugher-in-law got hers last weekend because she wanted to "play too".

Why do I want to be on the board? I'm just interested in working to promote the sport for several reason. It's great exercise, it's a wonderful source of adventure and discovery and it's a great family activity. You don't need a $1000 GPS or a lot of fancy equipment. I've been geocaching with a Garmin Etrek since I started and it's worked great. I manage an interpretive center and we've purchased 10 Etreks for our children's backpack program and have gotten lots of kids started on geocaching. It's just a great pastime and I'd like to work with other board members to increase communication among cachers and increase the numbers of both caches and cachers across Iowa.

I am a 56 year old Grandma from New Virginia, Iowa. My husband Dean and I live on 20 acres of timber - lots of hickory and oak trees. This has been a dream of ours for a long time and we finally bought this place 5 years ago. We see and love to watch all the wildlife that almost comes up to our doorstep - deer, turkeys, coyotes, fox, possums, raccoons and lots of beautiful birds and other critters.

I work for Girl Scouts of Moingona Council as an outbased Field Director. That means that I am director over 11 field areas (service units of Girl Scouts). I cover all of 8 + counties in Iowa. I have an office in my home so only go to the GS office in Des Moines 2 days a week. I mainly work with the leaders as the liaison between them and the Girl Scout office. I have been involved in Girl Scouts for 32 years - 8 as a girl and when my daughter got old enough, the rest as an adult. After she graduated, I continued working with the Girl Scouts as a volunteer. In 1997 I started working as a professional Girl Scout at the Girl Scout office. I still love to be involved in anything that the girls are doing. I am also an Outdoor Trainer for the Girl Scouts. Each year we put on a "Survivor Tent Training" for Girl Scout leaders. They should have a progression of outdoor trainings ending with this if they want to take the girls camping. The training lasts all weekend and we have just as much fun as the trainees do. The same bunch of us that do this training go to Camp Sacajawea each summer for 1 week and do a session called Camp Survivor with the girls. They learn all kinds of outdoor skills and we also have a blast with that. This summer we are going to introduce them to Geocaching. Iowa Copper and I have set up 30 + caches at our Girl Scout camp for leaders and troops to use. Just wish we could post them on the website, but for safety purposes, the Council won't let us. We have also put on a Geocaching training for GS leaders and have a few hooked from that training.

My husband works for HyVee Food Stores in Des Moines on the night stock crew. He has worked there for 34 years. Hates the job, but just can't retire yet. We have 2 kids - Jason who is 31 and Jenny who is 29. She has two little girls who we love dearly. Ali (Ali'sark) just turned 9 and absolutely LOVES geocaching. She had to have a GPS for Christmas and of course Grandma would rather she had that as anything else. I can't think of a better way for kids to get them out from in front of the TV and outside. Our youngest granddaughter Abi is just 5 months old. We do have a snuggli so before long, I will probably have her out caching with us - at least to some easy ones. Dean doesn't really care for all the walking, so doesn't like to cache with me, but doesn't want me to go alone. Oh, I guess I have a Granddog - Jason has a Boxer named Bailey. We also have 4 outside cats and 3 guppies. I am allergic to cats and dogs, so nothing inside but the fish.

Iowa Copper and I met through Girl Scouts and in September of 2003 we got to go to Edith Macy Training Center (our GS training center) in New York for an Outdoor Trainer's Conference. One of the sessions we did was Geocaching. They only gave us a couple of hours to learn to use the GPS and go out and find as many caches as we could. We were hooked - or addicted as my family and friends say. After we were done with all of our other classes, we went back out to find some more caches. We really weren't too smart, as we didn't take a flashlight and it did get dark on us. To make matters worse, it started raining - but we didn't let that stop us. We found all but 2 of the caches - these were clear up a big hill so we decided to go out before breakfast the next morning to find them. We found out later that we were the only ones who found ALL of the caches that they had put out. I knew my son-in-law Brian has a GPS and didn't use it. They picked us up at the airport and I asked about it. He said it didn't work for what he wanted (he hunts in Colorado in the winter and it was too cold for the GPS) so he gave it to me. It is a Lowrance - several years old. I did a few caches with it - my very first cache was "Bridges of Madison County" in October of 2003. We also took Alisark to this one. At that time she didn't have a cache name and wasn't logging the caches. Didn't really get to caching until that next summer - Iowa Copper got a new GPS and we went out as much as we could. Just kept getting more often all the time. Finally got to be every Saturday - that is our day and all we do is cache if possible. I have also had to lose weight because of health problems. I hate to exercise, but this isn't exercise - it's fun. Have lost 45 pounds and feeling so much better. We even cached all winter (think it's better to do then - no skeeters, PI, spiders or snakes! and don't have to fight the hot weather). We only missed 2 Saturdays all last winter. We are running out of caches to do. They are just not getting new ones out as fast as we would like.

I got to talking to the only guy at work about Geocaching and he knew what it was. He said maybe we could get some GPS's donated to the Girl Scouts - got 2 Magellans and he gave me one to try out and use. I am still using it, but am saving my pennies and all the "cash" I get out of caches to buy one of my own.

I have 2 caches of my own out - 1 multi and 1 Letterbox Hybrid. We decided to try a couple of letterboxes along with the caching. A little different mindset to do them. Did 1 in Des Moines and emailed the owner that it was wet. She emailed me back and said it was so weird as she was only in DM 2 days a year and was there then. Wanted to meet us for coffee and we agreed. Talked Letterboxing and Geocaching. Decided we needed some Letterbox Hybrids in our area. I think there are only 3 in Iowa, so now there is another. Have plans to get several more caches out. Haven't had time to get it all together. Out DNR is not real receptive to the idea yet in Clarke County. Maybe being on the IGO board would help get them involved and we could get more caches put out in southern Iowa.

I have 349 finds thus far. Have a few DNF's in there, but we usually persevere and look till we find them. We are really trying to get more women involved in caching, and of course we need to have a woman on the board!

I am in my early 40s. I am married with three kids (ages 18, 9, and 4). The 18 year old just graduated and is getting married the 16th of June. She thinks it is fun to see how much stress Dad can handle. I work for Iowa Public Television as an IT specialist. This basically means I get to deal with everything new. All the new TV equipment is computer based, so I am one of three that gets to play with all of it.

I started geocaching about 2 years ago just before my 5 year anniversary. My wife thought it was a fun family activity. She decided on our second cache that only the urban/bike trail caches were family friendly. All the fun 2 mile hike caches I could do on my own. She is convinced now that I am totally obsessed but I think it is just a healthy pastime. My interests outside of caching are...well...Okay maybe I am just a little obsessed. Seriously, I enjoy camping and fishing, biking, and anything having to do with computers.

I would like to be on the IGO board to help expand the reach of IGO to new cachers. I have some ideas of how to bring more people to the IGO website and possibly expanding some of the features (without taking up too much of Mark’s caching time). I would like to see some IGO sponsored contests and to continue the great IGO events (like Hike-N-Seek and Cache Bash). As anyone who has met me knows, I love to talk about caching, so having regular Meet & Greet/Eats are something I would like to see happen. We are trying in the Des Moines area, with our second monthly Geo-Breakfast happening July 7th and host volunteers already for the third and fourth.

Lastly, I believe that geocaching is a game/sport that everyone plays for their own reason and in their own way. There is no right or wrong way to do it. Have fun, banter with friends in the logs, play the game your way and don't judge others that don't want to play it your way. I did not understand this part at first, but as I have gotten to know others, you get a better understanding of this concept.

I am 30 years old and have been married for three years. My wife, Anna (AP), and I moved to Cedar Rapids in 2004, but have both grown up in eastern Iowa. We have two cats, Hitchcock and Bonita. I am a 1999 graduate of Iowa Wesleyan College (IWC) in Mount Pleasant. While attending IWC, I served on the student council for two years and made significant contributions to activities, sponsorships, and decisions that were beneficial to the college and student body. Also at IWC, I was employed as a resident assistant (R.A.) for the men's resident hall and was on the hall council. I was called upon by the residence hall director to serve as acting hall director when he went on leave.

Following college I began work in the television broadcast industry and have continued in this field for the past seven years. I currently work for KCRG TV9 here in Cedar Rapids and enjoy it immensely. Throughout the past seven years I have produced commercials, public service announcements, and promos. I have filmed commercials, shot live news and live sporting events. I have been a videographer ("cameraman") for Friday Night Heroes at KWWL, and currently shoot for Friday Night Lights at KCRG TV9. I also currently work in Master Control (the heart of the TV station), through which, everything you see on-air must pass through prior to being aired. I help broadcast the University of Iowa Women's basketball games on-site (at Carver-Hawkeye Arena). I also work with the ABC Network out of New York City via phone and satellite. I control KCRG's DTV (which includes HDTV) and make sure everything on channel 9.1 and 9.2 (our two digital channels) is running correctly, smoothly, etc and in High Definition when applicable. There is a lot more that I do, but you get the idea. :)

Growing up I was involved in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). During my senior year in high school I achieved the rank of Eagle Scout and I continue to live the Scout Oath and Law everyday of my life. My background in the BSA gave me an interest in hiking at an early age, and hiking is what really excited me about geocaching! During college in the late ninety's, school took a large percentage of my time and the time for hiking gradually declined. Soon studies, sports, college radio, internships, (and some playstation videogames), etc filled the days and hiking made its way out. I had forgotten how much I loved it. When my parents introduced AP and myself to geocaching, I enjoyed it immediately because it got me back "into the woods" even though we did not do any hiking on those first few caches. When the first geocache came along that required a short little hike all of the fond memories of hiking came flooding back...I was hooked! Geocaching got me back into what I love: hiking.

While in Boy Scouts I was taught important lessons about taking care of the environment (i.e. cleaning trails and picking up litter and trash). After campouts, we would scour the campsite/park and pick up any litter we saw. We left every place we camped much cleaner than when we arrived. My troop was also responsible for cleaning the high school football field following game night. One of the greatest elements of geocaching is CITO (Cache In Trash Out), which allows me to actively contribute to keeping our parks and recreation areas clean. It makes me proud to be part of an oganization that works to clean up the Earth - or as the common theme goes "cleaning up our playing field." This past April on International Cache In Trash Out day, AP and I created and hosted the "1st Annual Cedar Rapids CITO Extravaganza!" event. This was the inaugural year of our event and we are fully committed to hosting this event every year. The event will be located in a different park or public facility in the Cedar Rapids area each year and by garnering local media attention, we hope to inspire "muggles" and geocachers to help keep our environment clean...and maybe gain a few new geocachers along the way!

I look forward to the possibility of serving on the IGO Board of Directors. I feel qualified and ready to help make decisions that will help promote and benefit geocaching and the Iowa Geocachers Organization.

Thank you and happy caching!!!