{"id":197427,"date":"2026-03-19T05:35:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T05:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/197427\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T05:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T05:35:14","slug":"wekiwa-springs-volunteer-completes-35k-service-hours-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/197427\/","title":{"rendered":"Wekiwa Springs volunteer completes 35K service hours"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wekiwa Springs State Park honored volunteer Don Philpott\u00a0at a Friday\u00a0ceremony\u00a0for\u00a0completing\u00a035,000 hours\u00a0of service.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am obviously honored to get the award, but I have been volunteering at Wekiwa Springs for 30 years and have loved every minute of it,\u201d Philpott\u00a0said\u00a0in a statement to The Apopka Chief. \u201cOur state parks are so special that they need protecting and preserving, and\u00a0I have been happy to help in any way I can. I also have the pleasure of volunteering alongside\u00a0a great group\u00a0of people, volunteers, and staff, who do so much willingly and with little recognition.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Philpott has volunteered at the park for 30 years\u00a0and\u00a0serves as president of the Wekiva Wilderness Trust\u00a0(WWT). He is also a board member of the Florida State Parks Foundation, co-founder and co-chair of the National Association of State Parks Federations, Florida Master Naturalist, Florida Master Gardener, and a Certified Interpretive Guide.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Philpott\u2019s extensive research on Wekiva Springs State Park and Rock Springs Run State Reserve for the past 15 years led to the discovery of two ghost towns\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Clay Springs and Ethel.\u00a0WWT then published one book for each town, both of which are available to download\u00a0at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wwt-cso.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">wwt-cso.com<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rock Springs Run State Reserve will honor Ethel\u2019s history at its\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/events\/726730406863681\/726730416863680?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22extra_data%22%3A%22%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22unknown%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22external%22%7D%2C%7B%22extra_data%22%3A%22%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22surface%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22permalink%22%7D%2C%7B%22extra_data%22%3A%22%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22surface%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22permalink%22%7D]%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Heritage Festival<\/a>\u00a0from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.\u00a0Saturday and Sunday.\u00a0The\u00a0free\u00a0event will\u00a0feature\u00a0music, reenactors, food, and family fun.<\/p>\n<p>                                                                                                                                                                                                                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2-1.png\"  class=\"multiple_authors_guest_author_avatar avatar\" height=\"80\" width=\"80\"\/>                                                                                                                                                                                                            <\/p>\n<p>Sarah Merly is an editorial assistant and reporter for The Apopka Chief. She joined the Chief in May 2025 after graduating from Patrick Henry College&#8217;s journalism program in Washington, D.C. In her spare time, Sarah loves watching rom-coms, visiting Disney, and throwing parties.<\/p>\n<p>                                                                                                                                <a class=\"ppma-author-user_email-profile-data ppma-author-field-meta ppma-author-field-type-email\" aria-label=\"Email\" href=\"https:\/\/theapopkachief.com\/wekiwa-springs-volunteer-completes-35k-service-hours\/mailto:smerly@theapopkachief.com\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wekiwa Springs State Park honored volunteer Don Philpott\u00a0at a Friday\u00a0ceremony\u00a0for\u00a0completing\u00a035,000 hours\u00a0of service.\u00a0 \u201cI am obviously honored to get&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-197427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}