United States Eventing Association

Celebrating the Successes of The USEA's VIP Volunteers in 2024

As 2024 draws to a close, we would be remiss not to recognize the many volunteers who dedicate countless hours of their free time to the success of our sport. There were 72,374 hours logged in the USEA’s Volunteer Incentive Program (VIP) this year across the 171 events that utilized the eventingvolunteers.com platform to log volunteer time. This impressive amount of volunteer time was contributed by 4,378 amazing VIP volunteers.

The Volunteer Incentive Program, which was formed in 2015, was created to recognize the USEA’s dedicated volunteers through national and area leaderboards which award year-end awards and prizes. Here are the volunteers that topped the leaderboards across the 2024 season!

The Top-10 volunteers on the national volunteer leaderboard were all VIP medal recipients. The VIP Medal Program has been recognizing volunteers who consistently serve the sport since 2020, and there are now more than 80 volunteers who have been recognized for receiving their Bronze (500+ hours), Silver (1,000+ hours), or Gold (2,000+ hours) medals through the program.

This year’s 2024 USEA Volunteer of the Year, Susan Hart, of Oxford, Pennsylvania, also gained the distinction of being the first USEA VIP Gold Medalist, meaning she has logged over 2,000 hours of service in the Volunteer Incentive Program. In 2024 alone, she clocked 691 volunteer hours. Hart was the runner-up to this prize last year with 663 hours.

This year’s USEA Volunteer of the Year reserve champion is last year’s champion, Jim Moyer (Gig Harbor, Washington) who offered up 489 hours of volunteer time in the 2024 season. Third place went to Beth Diamond (Lincoln University, Pennsylvania) with 393 hours.

Hart boasts the all-time highest recorded number of volunteer hours on the platform with 2,373 hours recorded since 2016. There is one more volunteer who is on the cusp of receiving their gold medal status in 2025—Diane Bird of Aiken, South Carolina, who's sitting just shy of the 2,000-hour mark with 1966 hours logged!

New VIP Medal winners for 2024 are listed as follows:

• Gold Medalist (2,000+ hours)
  • Susan Hart
• Silver Medalists (1,000 + hours)
  • Jerry Buell
  • Lynne Buell
  • Carroll Crowl
  • Bambi Glaccum
  • Catherine Hale
  • Joan Harper
  • Debbie Hinkle
• Bronze Medalists (500+ hours)
  • Tanya Ashinhurst
  • Stacey Blyskal
  • Janet Dillon
  • Chris Hayner
  • Emma Hinke
  • Melia Langdon
  • Mary McCarthy
  • Chrisanne Mortensen
  • Pat Noble
  • Robinson Regen
  • Rick Resto
  • Todd Van Lehn
  • Lynne Vettel

In total, there have been 58 Bronze Medals, 22 Silver Medals, and one Gold Medal awarded since the program’s creation on Dec. 1, 2016.

Several factors can influence the number of hours each volunteer has, such as the frequency of events in each area, geography and the ease of travel, and how many events are using EventingVolunteers.com. Whether it’s 100 volunteer hours or 10, every top volunteer from each area deserves recognition for their hard work! Below are the current top-3 volunteers from each USEA area.

Area I

1,956 hours - 170 volunteers - 14 events

1. Margaret Potorski - 76:38
2. Katie Murphy - 60:57
3. Ann Grenier - 52:49

Area II

26,768 hours - 1,585 volunteers, 47 events

1. Susan Hart - 691:30
2. Beth Diamond - 297:24
3. Dennis Davis - 268:15

Area III

10,892 hours - 503 volunteers - 49 events

1. Catherine Hale - 382:12
2. Jerry Buell - 343:40
3. Lynne Buell - 295:44

Area IV

1,368 hours - 118 volunteers - 7 events

1. Michelle Keene - 66:30
2. Kelly Cross - 48:00 hours
3. Amy Roberts Werner - 47:15

Area V

1,041 hours - 131 volunteers - 7 events

1. Debra Sue Waters - 74:35 hours
2. Connie Buscha - 35:42 hours
3. David Carroll - 23:49

Area VI

1,897 hours - 174 volunteers - 13 events

1. Golly Martin - 116:57
2. Pat Noble - 64:03
3. Heidi Hoffmann - 57:01

Area VII

4,660 hours - 249 volunteers - 11 events

1. Jim Moyer - 489:14
2. Sarah Airhart - 247:59
3. Kendra Zartman - 179:54

Area VIII

20,853 hours - 1,370 volunteers - 12 events

1. Debbie Hinkle - 315:07
2. Shelley Ryan - 258:02
3. Chris Hayner - 230:58

Area IX

2,026 hours - 154 volunteers - 10 events

1. Kayla DeHart - 150:54
2. Rebecca DeFer - 80:01
3. Donna Johnson - 73:54

Area X

622 hours - 46 volunteers - 5 events

1. Brian Murphy - 60:30
2. Jana Flagler - 54:09
3. Shawn Ortiz - 32:42

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About the USEA Volunteer Incentive Program

Volunteers are the lifeblood of our sport, the unsung heroes, and the people who make it possible to keep eventing alive. In efforts to recognize the dedication, commitment, and hard work that volunteers put into eventing, the USEA formed the Volunteer Incentive Program (VIP) in 2015. In 2017, an online management portal was designed for volunteers, organizers, and volunteer coordinators at EventingVolunteers.com, which is also available as an app for iOS and Android.

Volunteer incentives include national and area recognition, year-end awards, a top ten USEA Volunteer leaderboard, and a Volunteer of the Year award which is given to the volunteer who accumulates the most volunteer hours on EventingVolunteers.com at recognized events throughout the USEA competition year. Click here to learn more about the USEA Volunteer Incentive Program.