Emergency responders honor Ann Ross
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POLSON — “They don’t make Ann Rosses any more,” Steve Stanley, Director of Lake County Office of Emergency Management said.
Stanley was part of the group honoring Ann Ross for her 20 years as a Red Cross volunteer before a Tribal Emergency Response Committee/Local Emergency Providers Committee meeting. The meeting was held on Sept. 15 at 3 p.m. at the Tribal Fire Hall on old Hwy. 93.
Over lemonade, brownies, cookies and candy, group members spoke about Ross, including Colleen Tone, State District Director for Red Cross, who presented Ross with a plaque and her own emergency radio.
Ross has been a Red Cross volunteer since she retired in 1990 after a 31-year career as a United States Navy nurse. Ross’ nursing experience made her sought after to teach Disaster Help Services classes for Red Cross.
Ross said she was strictly a local volunteer. One of the busiest times she can remember was during the wild fire season in 2007. Ross was volunteer coordinator for Lake County and Sanders County. Every morning it was up early for an 8 a.m. conference call with other volunteer coordinators across the state. Each evening she drove to Hot Springs for the fire meeting, where the community gathered to get the latest information on the Chippy Creek fire and the firefighters progress. During the day, Ross and her crew handled many tasks, including moving cots to Polson and to Arlee when the Black Cat fire jumped the road.
In a way, Ross grew up with the Red Cross. Ross’ dad, Carl A. Ross, worked for the Red Cross, and started the Red Cross swim lessons program in Polson in 1935. About five years ago the Red Cross quit offering the classes so Ross established the Carl A. Ross Foundation in honor of her dad to keep teaching kids to swim. The foundation, a 501c3, continues to run the swim lessons, and 2010 marks the 75th anniversary of the beginning of Red Cross swim classes.
Ross praised the TERC/LEPC group, as far as anyone knows the only one in the U.S. where tribal and county emergency response personnel work together. When she retired 20 years ago and came back to Polson, Ross said a friend invited her out for coffee at the Rabbit Tree Inn. In the back room of the restaurant, Lloyd Jackson, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, and Dick Giffin, Lake County, both heads of Emergency Management, started talking about how the tribes and the county emergency services should get together.
Ross said next thing she knew she was invited to a winter storm tabletop exercise with Giffin, Jackson, and representatives from Mission Valley Power, Tribal Fish and Game, Tribal Law Enforcement, Tribal Housing and the Montana Highway Patrol.
“That was the beginning of this group,” Ross said,
“Now it’s been signed by the CSK Tribal Council and the Lake County Commissioners. For me it was a privilege to be a part of this group and to be a Red Cross volunteer.”
Ross said some mornings were early and she’d ask herself why she was a Red Cross volunteer.
Then, Ross said, “I’d see some guy standing in his slippers in a snowbank, who’s lost everything he owns. That’s why I do it.”
