Volunteer Spotlight: The Humboldt Officials Posse

This month’s Volunteer Spotlight is shining on the Humboldt Posse, Humboldt Roller Derby’s official safety enforcers!

HRD is so lucky to have so many dedicated skating and non skating officials to help our games run smoothly, maintaining safety of the players.  Officials work hard both and off on the track; spending hours learning the complex rules and paperwork and then attending practices to learn how to put that knowledge to practice in the fast paced, action packed games.

Skating Officials Delia Damage, Ray Charles, Raven Maniac, Stef Leppard, Connie Bon Bons, Eldorado, and Madd Dog rule the track in their stripes!  And we couldn’t run a game without the Non Skating Officials; Handsome Miles, Famous Amos, Terra Torial, Sue Nami, Anita Smile, Mother Nature, Bambi, Oh Hey, Meowlatov, Roller Satyr & Bear Knuckles who help keep track of penalty and jam timing, scores and line ups!

HRD has several Skating Officials who have been with us from (nearly) the beginning of the league.  Delia Damage, Ray Charles and Raven Maniac lead up our referee training committee and help keep the crew organized and up to speed with rules changes.  Delia our Head Ref has been skating with us since 2007and Ray Charles and Raven joined soon after.   Delia is a super smarty pants and has spent countless hours ensuring HRD has a solid officiating crew to oversee the games.  Ray is a super skater and you can often see his fancy moves on the sidelines.  Raven also volunteers as a Board member and PR and sponsorship coordinator.

Stef Leppard began officiating in 2010 when she was inspired by the organization as her daughter participated in the Saplings.  Connie Bons Bon is our wonderful saplings coach, one of our founding skaters of HRD and started skating as an official last year.

Eldorado and Mad Dogg May are our newest skating officials. You can also see Eldorado skating with Ukiah’s Men’s Derby team, the Deep Valley Belligerents! Mad Dogg came to HRD with a background as a skater and ref with Tahoe Derby Dames and around eastern/central CA.

Non Skating Officials (NSO’s) are essential for game management and it takes a bunch of super smart and dedicated folks to keep HRD games running smoothly.  Huge thanks to our NSO coordinators, Terra Torial, Sue Nami  (Meowlatov’s mom) and Anita Smile! They take care of all the paperwork, make sure it’s organized, train and coordinate all of the NSO’s.  It is a lot to keep track of! Miles and Amos are our faithful penalty box timers who have been with the league since the very first game. The game doesn’t start until Oh Hey, our Jam timer extraordinaire, blows his whistle! Mother Nature, mother of one of our very own saplings Natural Disaster, helps out with scorekeeping and Roller Sayter, dad of Sapling B-Crazy, is there to help out too.  Bear Knuckles just joined us and has been expertly operating the scoreboard the last few games.  Skaters Bambi and Meowlotov help out often too!

We also want to give a shout out to the past HRD officials who gave so much to help shape the HRD official posse.  Thank you all!  Special thanks to former Head NSO and HRD Board member, Ruby Red Delicious is now with officiating with Rat City Roller Girls up in Seattle. And also to KBone, our dedicated scoreboard operator since the beginning of the league until retiring this season– We miss you guys!

We couldn’t do it without all of you guys! Thank you for working hard and dedicating your time to HRD making sure we play safely!

If you are interested in joining our Official’s Posse, email referee@humboldtrollerderby.com.