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2024 Dirk Richwine Professional Mentoring Award

Check back for more details about the 2025 NRPA Awards.
Get A Reminder about the 2025 Nomination Period

The Dirk Richwine Professional Mentoring Award is presented to an individual who has made outstanding contributions through mentoring of individuals and organizations to strengthen the field by helping other professionals grow, develop, and flourish, and by better preparing the next generation of parks and recreation leaders. Click Here to learn more about the life and legacy of Dirk Richwine.

The nomination deadline is March 29, 2024.

Eligibility Criteria:

  • Nominee must be an NRPA member for at least 10 years
  • Minimum of 15 years of experience in public parks and recreation (local, special district, county, state, tribal, military, or federal)
  • Certification as a CPRE or CPRP (preferred)
  • Nominee must have made a significant and outstanding contribution as a mentor, ideally through multiple avenues, including but not limited to:
    • Individual/Direct Mentoring: Assisting more than two individuals to reach a) their goals in the park and recreation profession that they may have not otherwise attained and b) a positive impact on their community/the profession because of the mentoring.
    • Indirect Mentoring: Providing mentoring opportunities for others by creating an environment that fosters and encourages such relationships with a positive outcome i.e., state/national mentoring groups (e.g. CAPRA mentoring, YPN mentoring, Awards Committee mentoring).
  • Please note: an individual providing paid training or consulting is not considered a mentoring behavior.


Application Materials:
To support this award, the nominator shall identify tangible and specific information defining how, when, and whom the nominee has influenced to reach goals they may have otherwise not sought or been able to reach. The award is designed to recognize professionals who have demonstrated exemplary long-standing history of mentoring professionals, not for a single mentor/mentee relationship. 

  • Answers to the questions provided in the application form
  • Short essay responses (no more than 250 words for each) provided by the nominator to the following questions:
    • Provide an overview of how the nominee has made a significant and outstanding contribution as a mentor to the park and recreation profession. .
    • Provide an overview of the nominee's leadership of a local, state, or national parks and recreation mentoring group (in person, virtual, etc.) and/or documented support for mentoring programs. These programs often create an environment that fosters and encourages mentoring relationships with a positive outcome i.e., state/national mentoring groups (e.g. CAPRA mentoring, YPN mentoring, Awards Committee mentoring).
  • Letter from the Nominator (no more than 1 page) that provide an overview of the nominee’s career in public parks and recreation and their commitment to mentoring the profession
  • Letters of Support: (no more than five letters) that provide specific and distinct impact the mentor made on the individual, agency or group.  No more than one letter can be from a current employee within the nominee’s current agency.


Nomination Instructions:

  • All nominations must be received by NRPA no later than 11:59 p.m. EST on March 29, 2024.
  • Nominator may only nominate using this official nomination form. Self nominations will not be accepted.
  • All materials must be submitted electronically using this survey format.
  • Applicants must have or create an NRPA login account to complete an application.
  • Supplemental material file types include .pdf, .doc or .docx as noted on form.
  • Nomination is automatically disqualified if it does not meet criteria, submission instructions of if the responses are over the word limit.
  • This format has a save and continue feature that is located at the bottom of the question pages.


Terms and Conditions:

  • NRPA reserves the right to disqualify an application if in NRPA’s sole discretion it determines that the application does not contain truthful information, is contrary to the standards or policies of NRPA, or violates applicable laws, or if the nominee acted contrary to the standards or policies of NRPA, or violated applicable law or could reflect negatively on NRPA.
  • NRPA reserves the right to revoke any award or prize if in NRPA’s sole discretion it determines that the awardee acted contrary to the standards or policies of NRPA or acted in violation of applicable laws or could reflect negatively on NRPA.

For more information, contact the NRPA Awards Program at awards@nrpa.org.

Apply Today

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