I’m sure Jonny Wakefield was pleased to be nominated as the new President of the Rangeley Lakes Snowmobile Club (RLSC) last spring. And I’m positive he was honored to be elected last summer. However, on December 21, the first official day of winter and continuing in the 4 weeks leading up to SNODEO, well, let’s just say the interview started with Wakefield laughing…, “Not the year to be the president of the club AND a snowmobile dealer in town” (prolonged laughter) “Oh, it’s killing me”, he joked. The nervous laughter was due to the lack of significant snow at the time of the interview. Thank goodness by the time I finalized this article the snowflakes had been falling for several days.

Luckily anyone who knows Jonny, knows he is quick to laugh. During times like these, he has no choice, and he’s probably the perfect person to be the president. No kidding. He has a self-proclaimed consuming passion for winter sports, and with his background in the industry, along with his sense of humor and his community spirit, it should prove to be another great year, and great president, for RLSC.

While I have known him for his many years on the Rangeley Fire & Rescue department where he is currently a very valuable captain, I hadn’t known much about his background.

“I grew up in Livermore, right next to Turner. Grew up snowmobiling and skiing. We always had a snowmobile in the yard and then my family also had a chain of ski stores. We always came up here, fell in love with the place when I was a kid.”

He came up with his wife Missy about 15 years ago to work at what is now Boss Power Equipment. While they were only here for 2 or 3 years, having returned south to run another sports franchise, they were happy to move back.

“About 6 years ago, the opportunity came up to come up here and work for Larry (Koob) and we really missed the area, so we moved back up. It really appealed to us to be able to snowmobile and ski and everything right in the same town.

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He was already a member of RLSC when he lived here back in the early 2000’s, so he dived back into it right away.

“I was a member then and then when we moved back up here several of our friends were involved in the club. One of them being Mary Brey (the former RLSC president). Even a couple of years when I lived down south she’d recruit me to come back up and help with the auction. So pretty much, I want to say the first or second meeting after we moved back up here, Mary and Mike (Koob) made sure to drag me to a meeting and then I’ve been pretty much involved since.”

Last year he was the RLSC vice president, and the year before that he oversaw SNODEO, but this year the responsibilities are significantly different.

“I’d say the responsibility is greater. You feel a lot more weight on your shoulders. As vice president I was not as involved in the budgeting as I am now. I think it’s also a little bit different cause with me being in the powersports business, people know where to find me (laughter). You know what I mean. So, it’s definitely a lot more people seem to track me down at the office when they have concerns and stuff with the club, but definitely more responsibility as president. A lot more stress for sure.”

Note the “freemobiler?” sign behind Jonny at his office desk at Oquossoc Marine.

I asked if he preferred that people don’t contact him at his day job at Oquossoc Marine, but he brushed it off.

“I’m pretty readily accessible as it is. You know what I mean. Between having a business in town, my cell phone number is out there. We monitor our social media platforms pretty aggressively- so either way, however, they choose to get a hold of me. I think definitely we’re a pretty easy to get a hold of club.”

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Being accessible is part of what keeps the momentum and enthusiasm for a club thriving and it has definitely paid off. For the past decade, the size of the RLSC membership is consistently one of the highest for snowmobile clubs, if not the highest, in all of Maine. Of course, it takes a lot of teamwork to maintain.

“The last five years of the snowmobile club I would say there’s not a huge downtime. Last year we had over 1300 members. So, when you get to a club of that size, it definitely turns into a year-round responsibility.”

It’s a serious responsibility that he and the board share.

“We’re pretty lucky, we have a great team. So, I would definitely say it’s more of a team-work environment. The executive board of the club- so your president, vice-president, the treasurer, secretary, and trail master. We try and work together and make a lot of decisions as a group. Once the snow hits, I’d say the formal meetings we do at least once a month, but it ends up being usually every two weeks. But I will tell you, I don’t know if a lot of people realize it, but I mean the Board of Directors (BOD), pretty much we talk in one form or another, majority of us talk with each other daily. It almost has to be that way just cause there’s so many moving parts now. I’m lucky too. I have before me, you know, Mary Brey was president, Mike Koob, Brian Kelley. I’ve had some really great people to work under and learn the ropes from and very fortunate that a lot of the past officers stay involved in the club. There’s a lot to it, but it could definitely be a lot worse if a lot of them didn’t stay involved. But definitely the day-to-day operations fall on myself and the vice-president. But as I said, I’m very, very lucky. I have a phenomenal board of directors to work with, so it makes a lot of the stuff a lot easier.”

That being said, it can still be nerve racking.

“I’m trying to feel optimistic (laughs). It literally, not being wise, keeps me up at night. I constantly am stressed over trail conditions, and you know we have a lot of people that joined the club that want, expect, the trails- to come up and ride. It’s also a lot of pressure on the club because we know the local businesses- a lot of them really rely on that income from snowmobilers. So there’s a lot of weight on our shoulders. I mean I really, I mean I definitely hope we get the snow for SNODEO. I mean on top of everything in the community, we also as a board have a ton of time already invested into this. We start working on SNODEO in the summertime and you know, every year is different. Last year we had to cancel because of the coronavirus. This year we had to modify. We are not doing any inside events during SNODEO for the snowmobile club because of the coronavirus. So, we’re trying to do everything outside, but the problem then circles right back around to we need snow.

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So we are NOT doing Casino Night which was a very painful decision to make because it is an excellent fundraiser for us but there’s no way to safely do that within guidelines. You know I mean, we have to consider our membership. You know we don’t want to have an indoor event and a bunch of people get sick. So we decided to do all outdoor. So we’re going to kick it off, this will be the first year, on Friday (1/21) afternoon we are doing a snowmobile themed cardboard race at the Mingo (Springs) Golf Course. And then, Saturday we’re going to have vintage and youth snowmobile racing at the airport that is in conjunction with a company called ‘Tame the Track’ racing series. Also, Saturday afternoon at Bald Mountain Camps we have radar runs. And then Saturday we have the snowmobile parade. This year the theme is luau on the snow, so like a Hawaiian themed snowmobile parade which ought to be very interesting (laughing). And then hopefully weather permitting, followed by fireworks out on the town cove.”

Praying for snow wasn’t originally on top of the to-do list for 2022. Wakefield listed the original top three goals that came to mind: landowner appreciation, membership communication, and trails.

-“My biggest goal for myself and the club this year definitely was to really focus on landowners this year. Because especially we’ve had a lot of newer landowners within the last few years, with a lot of real estate turnover in the area.”

-“Communication with the members. It’s really a tricky area because you have so many people in so many different places.”

-“I was hoping to actually add some trails this year but unfortunately we were unable to do that. It just wasn’t in the cards, but I really wanted to add some loops into our system, but it just wasn’t in the cards. We tried. We also tried to partner with some other groups and do some parking areas which unfortunately we couldn’t make happen, but we were able to partner with some of the ATV clubs which was a first and get a lot of trail work and bridge work done.”

Besides those issues, the finances of the club are always pressing.

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“The budget is a constant concern. We have four groomers that are considered to be towards the top of the line, and those aren’t easy to maintain or cheap. So, I’m lucky I’ve got Matt Kennedy at the groomer barn and a great roster of drivers up there like Chad (Alexander) and Scotty (Fellows), and Eric (Pomerleau). It’s kinda cool cause between the board of directors, we have a solid crew of volunteers that are not on the board and then, combined with our grooming staff we have people from all aspects of the community- different careers, different backgrounds, and it all seems to kind of come together. It’s definitely a team effort from top to bottom.”

During the interview Wakefield educated me on one of the maintenance activities that must be done before the snowmobile season can safely begin.

“What we just completed and actually finishing today, is what they call ‘panning’ and they go out with the groomers, just a couple of the older groomers without drags and we try and hit every mile of trail in the system to pack it, and also clear debris. But unfortunately, there’s not nearly enough snow right now to drag. And that’s always a fine line, you know, everybody’s itching to get out, but we have to keep in mind that we have to have the best interests first of our landowners- then of our members’ safety. Cause the minute we open the trails, you know there will be thousands of snowmobiles up here. So, we have to keep in mind safety, and so, it’s nerve racking. I’m literally up every night, in the middle of the night, just hoping, checking weather, you know just hoping that a storm appears and comes in because I mean we’re in desperate need of snow. Not only for the trails but we need a decent amount of snow so that we can have SNODEO.”

Worried for the club members, the town businesses, the stress of it all, my maternal instincts took hold and I tried to add soothing words having to do with easing off the pressure a little bit. Perhaps accepting the will of Mother Nature. I also tried to remind him that the Rangeley community continuously proves its strength by leaning on each other when needed. While Saddleback ski resort was closed for the five years, the local snowmobile enthusiasm picked up the slack and having held it for so long, they deserved some leeway.

“I appreciate 110% what you’re saying. I try. But sometimes I can be… I’m my own worst enemy. We’re so invested. All of us at the club. This time of year, anybody that’s on the board is committing to 20-40 hours a week to this club on top of our day jobs and our families. It kind of… it starts to consume you, cause you have a passion for the sport. We all have you know a passion for this community, so it starts to consume you. So, when things go wrong it really eats at us. But you do have an excellent point, and that’s another thing that’s happened this year- Saddleback actually is one of our business sponsors, and we’ve been trying to urge people to- even though that the trails weren’t open to come to town. You know a bad day in Rangeley is still better than a good day at home. We’re trying to push, come up, go out to eat, hang out at the camp, or relax, you know shoot some runs at Saddleback, because you know, you have a great point, they have taken some of the pressure off of us because with them being open people are coming up and it’s cool to see a lot of the dual sport families I call them, you know what I mean, where they’re snowmobilers and skiers and it’s cool to see them be able to go back and forth between both types of sports.”

Speaking of which, children Olivia and Logan are good examples.

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“Olivia is on the ski team. She literally skis on average 5 to 6 days a week. She has definitely been bit by the bug. Her and her brother both used to race snowmobiles. So it’s kind of cool to go from racing snowmobiles to now she’s racing on skis and then Logan actually works at Saddleback so he spends a lot of time up there.”

For those of you who may be experiencing your first winter here, this is a good reminder to heed the advice of some of the less green. When the temperatures drop, don’t let that stop you. Try one of the many winter activities that make this a true winter wonderland, even if it’s just in the backyard.

“The kids and I try and get out as much as we can. We’re even one of those that sometimes just take the snowmobiles out on the backside of our property and build a little bonfire and we’ll cook our dinner on the fire, and it may only be a mile or two from the house but at least it gets us out.”

While Jonny was making jokes, the dummy next to him was not amused.

Finally, if you are snowmobile lover, by all means, please join where you ride. You know for certain you will be appreciated by the entire RLSC and especially their new president Jonny Wakefield.

“I really want to thank everybody for the support of the club. That’s one of the many things that I love about this area is that everybody is so supportive of all of these different community groups that we have, and I mean, it doesn’t matter how many great people you have on a board. If you don’t have a good membership, and great supporters, you’re nothing. So, you know we’re super appreciative of our landowners, our sponsors, and our members because we completely understand we’re nothing without them… and I mean we get a ton of support from the local community and I appreciate very much.”

We appreciate you too Jonny. Whether you are fighting fires as captain, or putting out fires in your day-to-day responsibilities as RLSC president, your community involvement sets a great example.

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