By Pam Willison

Susie Waldron will be presented with Flathead Audubon’s 2024 Volunteer of the Year Award at the upcoming February 10 FAS meeting.
If you’ve read a Pileated Post newsletter, you’ve probably noticed the impressive quality. For the past couple years, each newsletter has had Susie Waldron’s fingerprints all over it, making it a really great newsletter. Behind the scenes, Susie volunteers to do the layout for each newsletter issue, which involves way more than cutting and pasting a story to a page. There are many design decisions about story formatting and placement, use of color, accents, backgrounds, and borders, selection of font style, size, and color for titles, adding artwork or photos, and updating all the monthly details. When you read the next newsletter give a moment of thought to the graphic design work that makes it so eye-appealing and enjoyable to read. Those are Susie’s fingerprints!!
Susie Waldron grew up in Tucson, AZ, then moved to Santa Cruz, CA in the 1970s, where she spent the next 30 years. While there, she was the Chair of the Sierra Club Population Committee, served on the Board of the Valley Women’s Club, which ran the recycling program in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and chaired their Environmental Committee for the Women’s Club.
After working as a court reporter for 10 years, she started her own business as a scopist/editor for other court reporters. She also worked as a graphic artist for a local entertainment weekly called the Good Times. Susie had driven through Montana in the ’90s and fell in love with the state. She eventually moved to Montana in 2000, where she has been able to continue her scopist work on-line, a fairly novel concept at that time. Fortunately, Susie brought her passion for supporting wildlife along with her; she has served on the Board of Montana Wilderness Association, and became a founding member of Headwaters Montana.
In 2017 Susie updated her graphic skills by attending FVCC and earning an Associate of Arts degree in graphic design. She reports that she is “delighted to put my skills to work volunteering for Flathead Audubon”!
Outside of her computer work, Susie enjoys anything outdoors: hiking, biking, kayaking, skiing, snowshoeing, running, or just reading on her patio on a warm summer night. She recently has starting traveling more, enjoying a bike trip in France and a trip to Norway, and plans to visit Italy next.
In addition to the newsletter, Susie has done the design work on various FAS posters, brochures, and displays. Her images have shaped our “image” in the Flathead community in many positive ways. She makes us look good! Susie has been very generous with her skills and time, and we want to say thank you and let her know how much we appreciate her. Thank you, Susie!
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