United States Eventing Association

The VIP Volunteer: Dennis Davis is Fair Hill International's Go-To Guy

If you’ve ridden at Fair Hill International (Elkton, Maryland) in the last decade, you’ve most likely ridden at an event put on with the help of volunteer Dennis Davis. Davis and his wife, Bobbie Davis, have been volunteering at Fair Hill for the last 11 years. A former mechanical engineer and liquor store manager, Dennis started volunteering at Fair Hill when he semi-retired. Now fully retired, he and his wife spend the majority of their time volunteering.

When he’s not volunteering with Fair Hill, Dennis is volunteering at a local wild bird rescue. “We take care of wild, native birds like eagles, hunting birds. It's basically a hospital. And I also help out at oil spills,” he explained.

He and Bobbie also enjoy traveling with Road Scholars. This year, they went to the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu.

So, just how did a mechanical engineer who loves traveling and birding wind up as one of Fair Hill International’s longest-running volunteers? Like many men, the answer is through his wife, who enjoyed trail riding casually. “I have no riding background,” said Dennis. “We were looking for something to do when we retired, and my wife had signed up to do some stuff out at Fair Hill. Then they send something out to say, ‘Hey, we need some painting done. Anybody available?’ She was still working. So, I said, ‘Well, I'm available.’ And I went up there, and once they got their claws in me, that was the end of that.”

Originally, Dennis and Bobbie only volunteered at the larger events, but now you can find them at most Fair Hill horse trials of any level. The duo even block off the entire month of October to dedicate their time solely to the event’s busy fall schedule. In 2018, they won the Fair Hill Unsung Hero Award.

Unlike some volunteers that have one specific post they enjoy the most, Dennis is a jack of all trades. “I enjoy a little bit of everything we do,” Dennis said. “Everything from set up, I run scores during the events, and then we're there for takedown.”

If you enjoyed the flowers at last year’s MARS Maryland Five Star, Dennis kept them watered. If you admire how quickly they can change out the flags on the fences, Dennis is part of that team. If you’ve wondered how quickly the little town of tents that’s required for each event can go up and then down, that’s, once again, done with Dennis’ help.

Dennis has been with Fair Hill for such a long time that, as he says, “I started off just doing little stuff, and now they more or less tell me, go do something, and I go do it. They don't have to worry about it.”

His motivation to keep coming back to Fair Hill and continue his decade-long volunteering career doesn’t rely so much on the horses, but on the people he works with and the satisfaction of a job well done. “I like being outside,” Dennis said. “I like working with the people that I work with up at Fair Hill. And then I also like watching the competition and watching the competitors and seeing their appreciation of the work we did. Sometimes there's challenges you get to figure out—how to get something to work. Then you get to watch everything go up. You start with a field and watch the jumps go up, and then the decorating. You get to watch it come together from start to finish.”

Fair Hill is the ideal location for Dennis to volunteer, as he’s able to combine his two favorite things: being outdoors and bird watching. If you’re at an event and spot a volunteer with a pair of binoculars, chances are high that’s Dennis. So far at Fair Hill, he’s seen many different species of birds, including hawks, woodpeckers, and even Pileated Woodpeckers, which is a protected species.

“There's a lot of people out there asking, ‘What's that bird?’ And I can identify some of the birds, but I also have an app that records the bird song, and it'll tell me what it is,” Dennis said. “Fair Hill in the summertime is big for a bird called a Bobolink. We see them flying around. I’m always looking forward to them in the spring and summertime when they come back to nest in the grasses.”

Besides the birds, Dennis and Bobbie have built a community of fellow volunteers that extends beyond the events themselves. “Some of the people that I volunteer with are also competitors, so I'm always watching them [compete]. We have quite a few friends that we volunteer with that we also go out to dinner with, do other stuff with. You just basically have fun and kid around and joke, but still get the work done. It's enriching, and it makes me feel good. You get to go up and meet all these people and talk with them, learn different things.”

As someone who didn’t have an equestrian background, especially not an eventing one, Dennis has done a lot of learning in a short amount of time. He went from not knowing the types of fences, to the present day, where he has a good understanding of everything from which fences need decorations where to what different course designers prefer.

“When I first started, I didn't know the names of any jumps,” Dennis said. “Somebody would say, ‘Go out and do something on the Advanced course.’ I was like, ‘OK, what color is that flag?’ I’ve been doing a lot of learning on the fly.”

So far this year, Dennis has racked up 105 volunteer hours, earning him the 23rd spot on the USEA VIP Volunteer overall leaderboard. Bobbie is in 39^th behind him with 86 hours. Dennis has 1,275 lifetime hours, and Bobbie has 1,086. What makes this number of hours even more impressive is that it was all done at Fair Hill. While they’ve considered it, the couple haven’t yet volunteered at any other venues.

Dennis is spreading his love of volunteering at these events to others in his community, even convincing a fellow volunteer at the bird rescue to try it out. “I always tell them you could do as much as you want or as little as you want,” Dennis said. “You don't have to put in the amount of hours a week. There are some people that just come out for the event day. I've had quite a few people I’ve talked to about it come out. I've had one person at the rescue that I work at. She was talking to me about it. I just told her about all the fun we have out there. Of course, in this heat it is not so much fun, or in the pouring rain, but we're still out there.”

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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.