Meet the Crew: Ohio River Paddlefest volunteer award winners

Adventure Crew could never pull off an event of the scale of Ohio River Paddlefest without a lot of help from our friends! It takes hundreds of volunteers to make the event run smoothly each year. While all of our volunteers work tirelessly to make this event a success, we took the opportunity to single out four people for our annual volunteer awards.

Pete Beltramo

Floats Our Boats Award: Pete joined the Paddlefest Leadership Team in 2023 to help with recruiting our motorized safety boats. (He’d already been a safety boat captain himself.) From the moment Pete took this on, he was a joy to work with and made life easier for Crew staff, despite having a challenging job: New boat captains always need to be recruited because someone has sold their boat, or they’ll be out of town for Paddlefest weekend. But Pete always finds enough boats to not only keep our paddlers safe on the water, but also to keep them entertained by the bands they have on board. This year, he is also helping out with the Great Ohio River Swim. 

Tim Kling

Safe Sailing Award: Tim has been involved in Paddlefest for a long time, but he stepped up to take over organizing the safety paddlers a few years ago. Since then, he’s been integral to our safety protocol, attending the annual Coast Guard meeting, hosting online sessions for safety paddlers, attending Leadership Team meetings and much more. Thanks to Tim, we can breathe easy knowing our safety paddlers are well vetted and well prepared.

Michael Brun

New to the Crew: Rick Halterman, a.k.a. “Radio Rick,” recruited Michael to join the team back in May. Rick has been wanting to scale back on his work as lead radio coordinator and bring in help. That’s where Michael came in … and luckily he did, because Rick had to go out of town unexpectedly and missed Paddlefest for the first time in 21 years! With Rick’s training, Michael jumped right in and helped with everything from advance radio testing, organizing and assignments to being a kind, calm on-site presence. 

Katie Kemme

Let the Good Times Flow Award. Katie, who serves on Adventure Crew's board, has been volunteering at the beer booth on Friday night for a decade. She works the duration of the night – all five and half hours – welcoming shift volunteers and making sure the taps and good times keep flowing. It’s impossible to say how many beers she’s sold, but we’re grateful for each and every one.

Thanks to all of the Paddlefest volunteers for being part of our Crew!