On May 21st, the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter held its annual awards banquet. The large airy warehouse space near downtown Los Angeles, FRANKIE LA, saw currents of many chapter members moving from the bars and coffee stations to the auction tables to the big communal India ink mural to the banquet tables, where we sat for vegan BBQ and took in the awards celebrating the past year’s remarkable contributors to the ongoing vision of the Sierra Club.
Our resident Tuesday Moderate Hike leader, Ken Beauchene, won top honors with the Chester Versteeg Outings Service & Leadership Award, given for “long-term and outstanding leadership in furthering the enjoyment and safety of the outings program”.
As one nomination form aptly writes:
“Since 2015, Ken has led hundreds of the Task Force’s regular Tuesday, Backbone Trail, and Saturday hikes. During the early Covid era, but after the outings shut down ended, the leader supply chain was broken. Ken jumped in to lead some weekly groups that had been together for decades. As one hiker put it, ‘If Ken had not stepped up and led the Tuesday Moderate Hikers, it is not clear that the decades old group would have been able to continue their weekly hikes.’”
Congratulations Ken!