Friday, March 29, 2024

Durst named DNR volunteer snowmobile safety instructor of the year

Dodge County resident Darren Durst has been named the 2022 volunteer snowmobile safety instructor of the year by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Durst teaches snowmobile safety in Dodge County and southeastern Minnesota as part of the K-M Snowdrifters snowmobile club.

As part of the K-M Snowdrifters, Durst has taught snowmobile safety for 17 years. He’s an avid snowmobile rider himself, and has been from a young age, and routinely relays his own positive and negative experiences to help inform the students he’s teaching. In an effort to reach kids and let them know about snowmobiling and ensure they get the training they need, Durst goes to local schools and invites students to take the course.

“Darren loves to get out and enjoy the outdoors on his snowmobile, but he also recognizes the vital role volunteers like him play in recruiting and training the next generation of riders,” said Conservation Officer Phil George, the Enforcement Division’s regional training officer in southeastern Minnesota. “He goes above and beyond to ensure all of his students have the foundation they need for a lifetime of safe riding.”

While the classes are open to everyone 11 years old and over, most of those taking the K-M Snowdrifters safety classes are among those too young for a Minnesota drivers’ license, Durst said.

For the younger group, when they complete the online DNR course, they go to the DNR site where they sign up for the program offered by volunteer groups like the K-M Snowdrifters. Durst said that online classes can teach the fundamentals but there is still the need for “hands-on” experience. The field days that Durst and the club organize provide that experience.

The field day begins with power point presentation and a talk by a DNR representative. Following the classroom portion of the training the activity moves to the outdoors where the students get the hands-on experience and learn about the machine itself and drive the course that the club has set up.

The goal of the course, Durst said, is not to fail a person and if someone has trouble with the course they can drive it a second time. Some of the kids breeze through it the first time and most will on the second try, Durst said.

About 30 kids a year complete the course, Durst said. All those who take the Snowdrifters course have to pre-register with the DNR, he said.

“I am not the only one,” Durst said of the volunteers in the program offered by the K-M Snowdrifters. “I get things up and running.”

He said that 85% of the club members have become certified instructors. To become certified, he said, involves a four-hour course and background check. An instructor has to remain active in the role or they will lose their certification from the DNR. The DNR also provides yearly updates on any changes to the laws.

The DNR provides the club with all the supplies, forms, and rosters for the classes.

Durst is among the more than 1,000 volunteer instructors who teach DNR snowmobile safety classes across the state and who are the backbone of the program, DNR officials say. Minnesota residents born after Dec. 31, 1976 are required to have a snowmobile safety certificate to ride, but DNR safety officials recommend all people who ride a snowmobile complete a safety training course.

 

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