SDCI Delights Owings Mills Residents at National Night Out!

The weather was picture perfect for National Night Out 2025, an annual event celebrated on the first Tuesday of every August since 1984 as a day for local families to get acquainted with their neighbors, learn about nearby businesses, and interact with community police and fire departments. Residents walked from their homes, many of which back up to the Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area wilderness, to the grassy "Central Park" area of the New Town community in Owings Mills. They danced to a DJ spinning tunes, sampled restaurant fare from businesses across Owings Mills, and enjoyed an ideal summer evening.

Beneath a large white tent kindly provided by the Owings Mills New Town Community Association (OMNTCA), board members and volunteers with Soldiers Delight Conservation, Inc. (SDCI) set out items of interest for children and adults. As always, we relish the opportunity to teach community members about the unique and critically important Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area, a habitat bordering many of the homes that make up the Owings Mills New Town community.

This year, we were especially pleased to welcome longtime supporters of SDCI and Soldiers Delight NEA, mining historian Johnny Johnsson and his lovely wife, Dawn, who dressed as Jesse and Edyth Tyson. Jesse Tyson was the elder son of Isaac Tyson, owner of the Choate chromium mine at Soldiers Delight in the 1830s -- the country's very first chromite mine! We were especially delighted to have "Jesse and Edyth Tyson" at our display booth this year because chromite was just designated Maryland's state mineral by Governor Wes Moore in June 2025 -- a big deal for Soldiers Delight and mineral lovers everywhere! Rounding out the volunteers at our booth this year were, behind the "Tysons" from left to right, volunteer Melissa Caudill, SDCI president Laura Van Scoyoc, volunteer Ben Giraldo, volunteer Natalie Snyder, Maryland Wildlife & Heritage Service education specialist Edwin Guevara, and SDCI vice president Lynell Tobler.

SDCI displayed a variety of items at our booth for visitors interested in learning more about the fascinating geological makeup of the serpentine barrens, a narrow strip of land that stretches south from Nova Scotia to Alabama, most of which has long since been covered over by development. But here, at Soldiers Delight NEA, the unique attributes of a globally rare ecosystem are on full display for all to see and enjoy. We featured bulletin boards that displayed information about how invasive plants take over our wild and natural spaces and species, and about how littering leaves a lasting negative impact on fragile native ecosystems like SDNEA.

New this year was a bulletin board devoted to fires, both prescribed and unprescribed. It is so critical for our adjacent neighbors to understand how vitally important periodic prescribed burns are to controlling invasive plant species at Soldiers Delight and how carefully they are planned and carried out. It is equally important for Owings Mills residents to understand that the April 4, 2023 wildfire that ravaged more than 300 acres at Soldiers Delight NEA was not a "prescribed burn gone awry," but an arsonist-set fire that threatened homes and our beloved visitor center. It was only thanks to the heroic efforts of Baltimore County Fire and other fire departments, as well as a prescribed burn crew returning from an exhausting day's work in Carroll County who heard the emergency call on their radio and turned around to help lead fire suppression efforts at SDNEA because they were familiar with the terrain, that the fire did not result in any loss of life or destroy any homes. In fact, we were overjoyed to meet Joe Dixon at National Night Out! Mr. Dixon is Chief of the Baltimore County Fire Department. He was delighted to pose with "Jesse and Edyth Tyson," and we were grateful for an opportunity to personally thank him for his department's efforts the day of the 2023 conflagration and in the days that followed.

Master Naturalist and SDCI volunteer Natalie Snyder sets up the "prescribed burn activity for children" at National Night Out 2025

One of the most enjoyable activities that SDCI offers at our outreach events is an opportunity for children to don a water-filled bladder-pack and take turns shooting spray at small targets in front of a board of painted flames, simulating the actions our highly-skilled burn teams employ when conducting prescribed burns at Soldiers Delight NEA, an annual program necessary to keep the flora and fauna of this unique habitat from being choked out by invasive vegetation.

Joy Cotter, 5, at left, and her brother Jacob Cotter, 9, try their hand at controlling the "flames" during our "prescribed burn activity for children."

While children gleefully squirted water at our faux flames, SDCI board members and volunteers explained to their parents and passers-by the important history of Maryland's "burn culture," when early Native Americans lit fires to herd deer for hunting, inadvertently preventing invasive vegetation from crowding out the unusual and, in some cases, globally rare plants that call the serpentine barrens home.

Brianna Williams, 20, in front, and her younger brother Brandon Williams, 13, take aim at the faux flames during SDCI's prescribed burn activity.

Probably the single most important outreach message we impart at SDCI is to implore neighboring residents to purchase only native plants with which to landscape their yards. The dangers of planting non-native, invasive species of plants, vines, shrubs, flowers and trees, many of which can be purchased at any local garden center or big box store, cannot be overstated. To our target audience, the residents  in the Owings Mills New Town community whose properties are near or adjacent to the Soldiers Delight wildland, our message is especially urgent: the seeds from common but invasive ornamentals, groundcovers and landscape specimens, several of which were displayed at the SDCI booth, are eaten (and later expelled) by birds, caught in animal fur, and carried on the wind out of neighborhood yards and into Soldiers Delight NEA and other wildlands, where they sprout and spread with abandon, crowding out irreplaceable native flora.

The Owings Mills New Town neighborhood common area, an expanse of green space with a community garden, swimming pool, and dog park, enjoyed a steady stream of happy residents enjoying National Night Out's various offerings. Free slices from nearby Ledo's Pizza, snow cones from Kona Ice, and hamburgers and hotdogs provided by the Owings Mills New Town Community Association, rounded out the evening's fun and tasty fare.

Our SDCI volunteers greeted many neighborhood families during the two-hour event, attended by an estimated 350 people this year. Almost one hundred of those neighbors visited our booth! The Owings Mills New Town Community Association’s National Night Out is always a festive occasion -- and SDCI was certainly happy to be invited back for our twelfth year!