Charles Wise
Sara Jarvis
2008 awards program
conservation award winners • photo gallery
• thanks to supporters
Our awards program, held on November 10 at Minnetrista, was a great success, with approximately 55 members, guests, and friends of the Robert Cooper Audubon Society on hand. This year our chapter broke with tradition and didn't have a full banquet or a "extra" program. Instead, the award winners were the program, as each of them told and showed a bit about the work they've done to with their respective awards.
A special feature of the evening was the renaming of the Youth Conservation Award, now known as the Charles D. Wise Youth Conservation Award. Charlie Wise was the founder of our chapter as a National Audubon Society chapter in 1974. He was a biology professor at Ball State University for many years and served as our chapter president for four full or partial terms, more than anyone else in the history of the chapter. Retired since 1991, Charlie and his wife Juanita now live in West Virginia. Together, they led the charge to make our group a viable, thriving Audubon chapter. Renaming this award is a fitting reminder of Charles's love of teaching young people about nature and of his tremendous commitment to and impact upon our chapter.
The
Robert H. and Esther L. Cooper Conservation Award, the
chapter's highest honor, went to Warren Vander
Hill, of Muncie, in recognition of his enduring leadership
of environmental initiatives in our area
– many of them through Ball
State University, but others through the community.
In the community, he has led the Sierra Club's Five Rivers Group, the Living Lightly Fair's Development Committee, and the Normal City Fly Fishing Club. He is a board member of the Red-tail Conservancy and an active member of various other environmental groups and efforts, in both Indiana and Montana.
At Ball State University, during his 37 years as faculty member and administrator, Vander Hill provided leadership and gathered financial support for a long list of environmental initiatives. In his role as Provost, especially, he was the force that pushed many ideas through the administrative approval process and made them a reality, including:
- Talloires Declaration – a pledge to Ball State’s participation in an international coalition of universities committed to developing environmental initiatives
- Green I & II – two large committees (the second one with nearly 100 members, from both the campus and the community) that were aimed at implementing dozens of specific environmental initiatives
- Greening of the Campus – a national conference on “green” practices that occurs every other year at Ball State
- Bracken Environmental Fund – a generous endowment given to Ball State by the estate of Rosemary Bracken, to support environmental projects of faculty and students
- Council on the Environment (COTE) – a standing committee at Ball State that serves as the clearinghouse for nearly all environmental initiatives
Vander Hill also created and taught two environmentally-themed courses: the “Wilderness Colloquium,” which he taught for many years in the Honors College, and an Environmental History course. He was also largely responsible for instigating UniverCity, which often included environmental speakers.
Muncie teacher Sara Jarvis was the winner of the Clyde W. Hibbs Conservation Education Award. Jarvis has challenged students in her elementary and middle school science classrooms for nearly 30 years, most of those years at Washington Carver Elementary and more recently at Northside Middle School. She has made a career of finding creative, innovative ways to allow children to encounter nature in tangible, meaningful ways, both in the classroom and outdoors, and to give them hands-on experience in conservation activities.
Jarvis
has won several Robert P. Bell Education Grants from the Community Foundation
of Muncie and Delaware County for science or conservation projects. Among
her many awards is the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics
and Science Teaching, administered by the National Science Foundation.
Winners
of the Richard Greene Public Service Award were Dave
and Sara Ring, Albany residents, for relentlessly pursuing
the provision of local, organic foods and the building of sustainable
systems of such foods in our region. In 2001, the Ring Family Farm became
an official participant in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and
since that time their farm has been the site of CSA-related community
activities, such as the “Pies Across America” event that was
part of Sustainable Table's 2007 Eat Well Guided Tour of America.
In
2004, the Rings founded the East Central Indiana Natural Heritage Farmers
Market that operated on the "Walnut Street green space" in Muncie
for several years. Finally, in May of 2007, the Rings and another local
farmer, Tom Gordy, turned an empty Muncie storefront into the Downtown
Farm Stand. It is Muncie's one and only permanent food market focusing
on local organic foods. As an advocate of Community Supported Agriculture
and organic foods, Dave frequently speaks to public groups, networks with
other local farmers in Indiana, especially organic farmers,encouraging
them to persevere in their demanding, yet invaluable, service to their
respective communities.
The
Phyllis Yuhas Wildlife Habitat Preservation Award was
presented to Cliff and Nancy Arellano,
of Anderson, for the work they've done in protecting and restoring wildlife
habitat on their 200-acre property, which is partially bordered by the
White River. Half of their property is under a conservation easement with
Red-tail Conservancy, making
it one of the largest permanently protected natural area along the river
in East Central Indiana.
Thanks
to Arellanos' hard work –
including that of a son, whose land
is adjacent to their own –
their property now contains several
rich and varied habitats. Cliff carefully researched native species before
introducing any new plants or animals. As a result, their two ponds are
now filled with native plant and fish species, fifty acres are covered
with native prairie grasses and forbs, and much of the property has dozens
of native trees that the Arellanos planted, in an effort to restore the
land to its original state.
Sixteen-year-old Adam Linder, son of Sheri and Tim Linder, of Anderson, received the Charles D. Wise Youth Conservation Award, in recognition of conservation work that he has done with his family and the Boy Scouts (Troop #230, Chesterfield).
Adam has regularly volunteered with his family at Mounds State Park from an early age, removing trash and broken glass from a small island near the park's boat launch each spring and fall. Twice a month during the spring and summer he also picks up trash on a trail along the White River, while looking for Great Blue Heron nests. This spring, Adam, his family, and his troop pulled garlic mustard (an invasive, non-native plant) at the park – enough to fill twenty-five fifty-pound bags.
The
first of only two scouts in his troop to earn the World Conservation Award,
Adam will be undertaking a forest restoration project at Mounds State
Park for his Eagle Scout project. The site he has selected is being used
inappropriately by some park visitors as a trail, putting it at risk of
eroding into the White River. The project will take at least 140 hours
of work.
Unlike the other RCAS conservation awards, the youth award provides a $400 scholarship, either to attend Audubon Camp in Wisconsin or to undertake a conservation project. Adam will be using his scholarship to defray costs of this restoration project.
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Bonnie
Nicholson, President
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Click
on any of the images below for a larger view.
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Thanks to our supporters
MANY thanks go to the following individuals and businesses that helped us put together a wonderful evening:
- Cintas and Tim Tuhey, for donating table linens
- Seedy Sally’s (Pendleton) and Wildlife Resqu Haus (aka Diana Shaffer), for donating door prizes
- Minnetrista staff, for use of their beautiful facilities, for this and all of our other monthly programs
