{"id":121390,"date":"2026-02-23T17:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T17:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/121390\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T17:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T17:54:08","slug":"new-game-wardens-join-pennsylvania-game-commission-ranks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/121390\/","title":{"rendered":"New game wardens join Pennsylvania Game Commission ranks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Harrisburg \u2014 Their training now complete, Pennsylvania\u2019s newest state game wardens are working in their newly assigned districts.<\/p>\n<p>The 37th Class of the Pennsylvania Game Commission\u2019s Ross Leffler School of Conservation graduated Jan. 31, adding 24 more officers to the ranks.<\/p>\n<p>Members of the 37th Class, their hometowns and their assigned districts are:<\/p>\n<p>Adam Beinhauer, of Pittsburgh (Lancaster County); Wade Clark III, of Apollo (Bedford County); Benjamin Conklin, of Effort (Carbon County); Joseph D\u2019Andrea, of Congers, N.Y. (Carbon County); Joshua Elchin, of Windber (Blair County); Peter Havens, of Willing, N.Y. (McKean County); Nathan Hazelton, of Scranton (Lackawanna County); Joshua Keirn, of Altoona (Chester County); Daniel Kennedy, of Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); David Kennedy, of Bainbridge (Lancaster County); Peter Lucas, of Canonsburg (Chester County); Brior Magee, of Montgomery (Montgomery County); Jared Marzka, of Erie (Butler County); Katherine Nealen, of Arnot (Cumberland County); Kyle Norling, of West Sunbury (Forest County); Etienne Nunemaker, of Clarks Summit (Berks County); Samuel Pepper, of Muncy (Chester County); Kirsten Pugh, of Chambersburg (Fulton County); Michael Shatalov, of Milanville (Lackawanna County); Clayton Shaw, of Carlisle (Juniata County); Jesse Speicher Jr., of Butler (Allegheny County); Brady Stumbaugh, of Chambersburg (Dauphin County); Joshua Tanner, of Smethport (Allegheny County); and Adan Ward, of Napoleon, Ohio (Somerset County).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outdoornews.com\/pennsylvania\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MORE COVERAGE FROM PENNSYLVANIA OUTDOOR NEWS:<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outdoornews.com\/2026\/02\/23\/pennsylvania-fish-boat-commission-is-monitoring-forever-chemicals-at-hatchery\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pennsylvania Fish &amp; Boat Commission is monitoring \u2018forever chemicals\u2019 at hatchery<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outdoornews.com\/2026\/02\/19\/lawmakers-nix-debate-on-claims-made-against-pennsylvania-game-commission\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lawmakers nix debate on claims made against Pennsylvania Game Commission<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outdoornews.com\/2026\/02\/19\/two-pennsylvania-senators-propose-bill-for-monday-deer-opener\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Two Pennsylvania senators propose bill for Monday deer opener<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Graduate Katherine Nealen received the class award for academics, with a score of 94.74%.<\/p>\n<p>Graduate Adam Beinhauer was presented with the driving award for exhibiting safe and exceptional police driving skills during the training program.<\/p>\n<p>Graduate Michael Shatalov was honored with the marksmanship award, achieving the highest overall proficiency in a series of courses firing the handgun, rifle and shotgun.<\/p>\n<p>Graduate David Kennedy was selected as the fitness award winner for maintaining the highest standard of physical fitness during the training program.<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy also was presented with a Life Saving Award for his actions on Oct. 18, 2025, while on field training assignment. Kennedy was part of a two-man team that was able to find and rescue a hiker who was experiencing a medical emergency on a remote section of the Appalachian Trail on State Game Land 211.<\/p>\n<p>Graduate Joshua Tanner earned the academy torch award for maintaining the highest professional standard of conduct, values, ideals and demonstrated abilities as judged by his fellow classmates.<\/p>\n<p>Graduation of new game wardens follows 44 weeks of intensive training, including 10 weeks of field training.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery one of these graduates is embarking on a demanding journey and the beginning of a lifelong commitment to service, conservation and duty,\u201d said Col. Richard Danley, director of the Game Commission\u2019s Bureau of Wildlife Protection.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecoming a Pennsylvania Game Warden is a calling to protect wildlife and to serve the people of Pennsylvania, even when the work is unseen, difficult, or dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harrisburg \u2014 Their training now complete, Pennsylvania\u2019s newest state game wardens are working in their newly assigned districts.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9649,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-121390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-hunting","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}