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Sedona Eye on Richard and Eloise Baldauf

Sedona AZ (February 29, 2012) – Village of Oak Creek residents Richard and Eloise Baldauf joined Friends of the Forest (FOF) soon after retiring and relocating to Sedona Arizona from Milwaukee Wisconsin in 2008. Milwaukee had been home for thirty five of the Baldauf’s now thirty seven year marriage, and Friends of the Forest was to be the first of many Sedona civic and community activities for the couple.

After graduating from Northern Illinois University, Rick Baldauf spent four and a half years with Blue Cross and Blue Shield Wisconsin before joining We Energies, a public electric and gas utility subsidiary of Wisconsin Energy Corporation headquartered in Milwaukee. He retired from We Energies finance sector after thirty plus years of service.

Eloise Baldauf graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1973. She began working at UW-M and was responsible for the accounting and reporting of expenditures for grants awarded to the university, its faculty, and Foundation. Eloise retired in April 2008 after nearly thirty five years of service.

Since moving to Sedona (VOC) in late 2008, the Baldauf’s have become actively involved in Peace Lutheran Church as well as the community. They are volunteers for Friends of the Forest, Keep Sedona Beautiful and Folksville USA litter campaigns. Eloise also volunteers as a substitute for the FOF “Front Liners” at the Red Rock Visitor Information Center and regularly at the Sedona Humane Society thrift store, Paw Prints.

Rick spent significant time helping Gary Chamberlain establish an effort known as CSI Road Warriors (which has since morphed into Folksville USA) to clean-up litter along the Cottonwood to Sedona SR 89A highway and Camp Verde to Cottonwood SR 260 highway corridors. He is involved in the Yavapai Big Brothers Big Sisters program and is a member of the Verde Search and Rescue Posse.

In 2010, Rick Baldauf was chosen Friends of the Forest “Volunteer of the Year” extolled for “exemplifying the volunteer spirit through his quiet enthusiasm and generous support of many activities, including River Rangers, Trail Maintenance, Fossil Creek Patrol and Litter lifting, and Water Quality Sampling.” In December 2010 Baldauf added the responsibilities of Treasurer of the FOF organization.

When not finding community activities to fill their time, the Baldauf’s enjoy road biking (especially on one of their tandems) and hiking the Red Rocks and other special places in Yavapai County. They are happy with the transition from Wisconsin to Arizona.

“The Lord blessed us with good jobs and good health allowing us to pack our travel tandem and bike throughout the US and western Canada and as far away as western Scotland enjoying much beautiful scenery, people and their local flavor and customs. We always gauged the riding to that which we had in Wisconsin. We love Wisconsin’s scenic countryside, its four seasons, and bucolic road cycling. But the older we got, winter became our least favorite season and seemingly longer! Our vacationing in Arizona kept drawing us back to Yavapai County and specifically the beauty of Sedona. By 2004 we were pretty sure it was where we wanted to retire. Having been here nearly four years now, finding a comfortable home and a great church, and making many new friends, we still feel that way!”

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