Annual Polar Bear Plunge at Lake Farmington will benefit K-9 rescue organization

The hardy souls who like to kick off the new year by participating in the annual Dave and Friends Polar Bear Plunge at Lake Farmington will be helping a local search-and-rescue organization this year in addition to enjoying their icy dip in the reservoir.

The annual fundraising event, now in its third year, is organized by local business consultant Dave Dailey, who chose 4 Corners K-9 Search and Rescue as this year’s beneficiary. The two-year-old, Farmington-based S&R group helps locate and rescue missing persons on tribal lands primarily in the Four Corners area, but it also has been called into service in states as far away as Montana.

Last year’s event drew 70 participants and dozens of other onlookers, Dailey said, for a total crowd of approximately 150 people. He’s expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 folks to turn out this year, explaining that the event quickly has become a popular New Year’s Day tradition.

“It looks like this year’s going to keep trending up with more people,” Dailey said.

An air of competition has even sprung up around the event, he said.

“We had a couple of guys (last year) that were competing for the longest time in the water,” Dailey said, adding that the winner toughed it out for seven minutes. “He wants to get to eight (minutes) this year.”

Conditions for last year’s plunge were relatively good, with an air temperature of 40 degrees and a water temperature of 36 degrees. That was considerably better than the conditions swimmers braved during the inaugural event, when the temperature was 26 degrees and the wind was blowing 20 miles per hour.

Last year’s event raised $2,000 for Sexual Assault Services of Northwest New Mexico. Dailey is hoping to top that sum this year, explaining that Bernadine Beyale, the founder and CEO of 4 Corners K-9, has thus far funded the organization herself.

Beyale said 4 Corners K-9 became fully established as a nonprofit and credentialed as an S&R group in February 2022. It has two dogs — Trigger and Gunny — who are trained in finding human remains or people who have simply wandered off for a short time. Beyale said will be adding a third dog to the team in early January.

“I work a full-time job, so I can only do searches on weekends,” Beyale said, noting that, during emergencies, she has a small group of trained volunteers who help her pick up the slack all across the Navajo Nation.

4 Corners K-9 has worked on 33 cases this year, she said, slightly more than the 30 searches it performed in 2022. One of those searches involved the effort to locate a missing 3-year-old Blackfoot girl near Browning, Montana, she said.

Beyale who had worked with New Mexico State Police for several years as an on-call S&R K-9 handler, was moved to launch her own organization devoted solely to working on indigenous lands when she realized how many people go missing each year in Indian Country.

She said she met an elderly Native couple whose son had disappeared six months earlier, leaving the official search at a dead end. Beyale went out on her own with Trigger to try to find him, managing to locate his remains on her second search.

That wasn’t the happy ending she was hoping for, but Beyale said she took some satisfaction in knowing she had helped the man’s family achieve a sense of closure. She said she warns all her volunteers to prepare themselves for similar scenarios.

“The hardest thing about what we do is we’re not going to have a lot of successes,” she said, referring to finding and rescuing living folks. “I have to explain to them, ‘If you’re looking for glory, that’s not what we do. You’re going to be disappointed, because there are a lot more failures than successes. But when we do help someone, it’s a gift.’”

Beyale said she needs money for all sorts of expenses to keep her operation running — vet bills, dog food, equipment, mapping apps for cell phones, GPS collars for dogs and, of course, gas money to transport the dogs and volunteers all over the Navajo Nation and elsewhere.

“Any help we can get is appreciated,” she said.

Dailey said it is suggested that all those participating in or watching the plunge donate $20 at the event. He said he already has heard of folks from Durango, Colorado, and Los Alamos making plans to travel to Farmington on New Year’s Day to take part.

Participants will begin to gather at 11:30 a.m. Monday, Jan. 1 at Lake Farmington, which is located just north of N.M. Highway 516. The plunge is scheduled to take place at noon.

Mike Easterling can be reached at 505-564-4610 or measterling@daily-times.com. Support local journalism with a digital subscription: http://bit.ly/2I6TU0e.

This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: Polar Bear Plunge returns for third year on New Year's Day