By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

ESCANABA, Mich. — Debbie Mulvaney is passionate about the Growing UP Foresters exhibit at Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (U.P.) State Fair; that passion and dedication were recognized last month at the International Assoc. of Fairs and Expositions’ annual convention in Las Vegas.

Mulvaney’s exhibit won several awards, including the Best Educational Exhibit Award for a fair of up to 100,000 attendees, as well as the Best of Division Award – which is selected from 13 category winners for fairs of the same size – up to 100,000. Most coveted was the Judges’ Choice Award, which Mulvaney described as the exhibit deemed the best of all, regardless of division.

“It was the best of anything they had seen,” she said, proudly. “We won a silver cup. I couldn’t stop talking about the exhibit.”

Mulvaney has been the woman behind the Growing UP Foresters’ exhibit for the past three years. Before that she was mainly responsible for the Growing UP Farming exhibit. She managed that for three years, as well.

“We decided the traditional farm wasn’t quite as relevant in the U.P.,” Mulvaney said. “That’s why we switched it over to forestry from farming. Every year we change it a little to keep up with the industry and to keep it fresh.”

There were many small exhibits under the rubric Growing UP Forestry, such as a forestry habitat display. Mulvaney said there were $8,000 worth of stuffed animals native to the U.P., donated by taxidermists and other donors as a part of this exhibit.

She also set up a wetlands experiment for children to help them understand the role these play in purifying water, in which the children have an opportunity to go fishing in a little pond. Another Mulvaney-inspired creation was a large, hollow log, which is eight feet long and five feet tall. Children are able to walk through it.

“You touch it, you feel it, you smell it – that’s my motto,” she said.
Other displays included an ant farm, a worm farm and plastic insects. There was a logging display, which included a toy truck that children could load with small logs and drive up onto a toy scale. Mulvaney said this helped the kids understand a little of what is involved in logging. Toy chainsaws were also provided so the children could simulate cutting some logs.

“They had a big truck tire there so kids could see how it was,” Mulvaney said. “When you think of logging, you think of Paul Bunyan out there with an axe, but it’s nothing like that. There’s a lot of heritage in this building and a lot of things you can learn.”
There was also a log cabin display, a selection of fur pelts for children to pick up and try to identify and a logging camp display. Part of that included a DVD that played an interview with an old logger who was born in the 1880s.

Another part of the exhibit was a simulated forest fire. Children were able to acquire wooden nickels along the way and spend them on items such as rubber snakes and rubber insects. They couldn’t buy everything, however; they had to make choices about what they wanted.

Mulvaney traveled to Las Vegas using her own funds, to accept the award along with Barbara Hensinger, director of Michigan’s fairs and expositions division, who also paid for her own trip. Mulvaney gave a 10-minute presentation when she accepted her award, and a 10-minute video. She thought she’d be nervous in front of all those people, but once she got started she said she just got absorbed in her subject.

“My sponsors have been so supportive,” she said. “It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, professionally.”

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Forest Service’s forest stewardship program helped to pay for some of the displays. Mulvaney said many other people provided cash donations as well as in kind contributions, and there were many people who volunteered their time to make the exhibit happen.