Between the Lines
Between the Lines KAFMO Founder Don Fowler Says, “Never Stop Learning!”
The annual KAFMO Fowler Founder’s Award Over the past 25 years, the Keystone Athletic Field Managers Organization has become a legendary support organization in the turfgrass community. Its beginnings and subsequent
Left to Right: Don Fowler; Dick Buffington, ABC executive and producer for LLWS; Dave Fowler
Fowler Founder’s Award
development into a premier professional organization owe much to the vision and efforts of founder Don Fowler. The annual KAFMO Fowler Founder’s Award, a bronze-cast replica of one of Fowler’s worn-out work boots, stands for the hard work demonstrated by the field managers being honored and by Fowler himself. We asked Don to look back and tell us about KAFMO’s beginnings.
KAFMO’s Beginnings Don Fowler’s interest in turfgrass management began in 1987 when he saw that McConnellsburg High School’s fields, where his sons played, were becoming unplayable. He decided to help. “I saw Dan Douglas’s field and wondered what those at the professional level did to make their fields look so good. We needed that kind of information at the community, park and playground level,” he recalls. Don started KAFMO in 1995 as a means of helping groundskeepers at the local level learn from the professionals. He gathered an interested group together and they decided that an organization made up of local groundskeepers and professionals could help everyone learn how to improve their fields. The first activity of this new group was a field day. They held their first clinic at the Farm Show building in Harrisburg and all who attended became KAFMO founding members. That was the beginning of an organization that would eventually become one of the strongest chapters in STMA. It now has over 350 members who can share their experience and field managers at the local level can now learn from the professionals.
The Little League Connection At about the same time that Don Fowler was bringing together his group of athletic field professionals and volunteers, Little League decided to renovate Lamade Stadium for the 50th Little League World Series. They reached out to the newly formed group, now called the Keystone Athletic Field Managers Organization, and asked them to support what was a landmark renovation at the time. Alpine Services, Inc. had been hired to redo the stadium and Don was asked to be the “clerk of the works” for Little League. Little did he know
Keystone Athletic Field Managers Organization 1451 Peter’s Mountain Road Dauphin, PA 17018-9504 www.KAFMO.org • Email: KAFMO@aol.com
12 Pennsylvania Turfgrass • Winter 2020
Contact: Linda Kulp, Executive Secretary Phone: 717-497-4154 kulp1451@gmail.com
Contact: Dan Douglas, President Phone: 610-375-8469 x 212 KAFMO@aol.com
