This cache is placed as a tribute to Michael Steve Lawson, Sr. known to the geocaching community as coolslaw56. Steve was born April 24, 1950, in Ruston, Louisiana, and Steve died February 19, 2008, in West Monroe. Steve had a heart attack while raking leaves in his yard. Coolslaw56 was the pioneer of placing geocaches in Lake D’Arbonne State Park. He placed the first ones inside the park which opened the door for all of us to be able to hide caches in the area State Parks.
Steve was ordained into the ministry in 1982 as a youth minister at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Ruston. At the time of his death, Steve was the Music Minister at Cedar Crest Baptist Church in West Monroe.. Steve’s hobbies included model railroading, restoring old VWs, and geocaching.
Steve started geocaching in December 2006. He had 259 finds in 7 states and 25 hides. I never had the opportunity to meet Steve in person. I started geocaching in 2007 and many of my first finds were some of his hides. I did reach out to him via email through the Geocaching.com website to seek his assistance in helping me to gain permission at a country church where I wanted to place a cache. He knew the pastor of that church and was going to help me, but a week later he passed away. He is still remembered fondly by our local geocaching group. I think he would be happy to know that he has an ammo can in the woods named after him!
