Back to the hall: Honor champions of Indiana’s natural heritage
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In 1949, Ogden Dunes resident Dorothy Buell came home from a visit to New Mexico’s White Sands National Park with a big idea. “If the federal government can afford to buy all that white sand, why can’t they do the same for our dunes?” she is reported to have asked.
But Buell didn’t just ask the question. She created the Save the Dunes Council. She buttonholed business leaders and elected officials. She formed a “Children’s Crusade to Save the Dunes.” She organized the purchase of Cowles Bog, the first dunes parcel to be protected. In 1965, her work led to the creation of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, which in 2019 – 70 years after Dorothy Buell started her work and four decades after she died – was named Indiana Dunes National Park.
A couple of years ago, I proposed that Indiana revive its Conservation Hall of Fame to honor the work of people, like Buell, who have protected Indiana’s natural places. Launched by the Indiana Natural Resources Foundation in 2009, the initiative honored only three classes before the naming of inductees stopped. I’m back to advocate again for the Hall of Fame’s revival, offering another list of people who should be recognized for their impact.
Jim Barrett III
One of the founders of ACRES Land Trust, the late Jim Barrett III is credited with being the lead author of the Nature Preserves Act of Indiana in 1967, which, in addition to protecting more than 50,000 acres since its passage, has been noted for its poetic prose.
Joyce Brinkman
As a legislator and state treasurer, Brinkman – also Indiana’s first poet laureate – championed the creation of a land conservation license plate fund. Originally the Indiana Heritage Trust and now the President Benjamin Harrison Conservation Trust, the fund has helped the state protect thousands of acres of Indiana’s natural heritage.
Jim and Nancy Carpenter
The Carpenters leveraged the success of their franchised Wild Birds Unlimited stores to become generous champions of nature. Notably, Zionsville’s Carpenter Preserve has been named to honor the couple’s role in protecting a large tract of Boone County land that had been slated for development.
Mike Homoya
As DNR’s botanist and plant ecologist for 37 years, Homoya is credited with finding a number of rare plants that led to protected nature preserves. But his greatest legacy might the way his countless presentations and his book Orchids of Indiana inspired countless Hoosiers to care about native plants.
Mary McConnell
The former Indiana director for The Nature Conservancy, McConnell collaborated with Gov. Mitch Daniels to create Indiana’s Bicentennial Nature Trust, which set aside an unprecedented $20 million for land protection. She then worked with the Lilly Endowment to secure an additional $10 million to protect land.
Sam Shine
A successful industrialist, the late Shine found his true passion in conservation. After retiring, Shine dove into planting trees, buying land and supporting groups dedicated to improving the planet. His legacy of land conservation lives on in the Sam Shine Foundation.
Bill Weeks
As state director for The Nature Conservancy in the 1980s, Weeks – who later founded the Conservation Law Center at Indiana University – hatched the idea of raising private conservation funding with a match from the state of Indiana. The resulting Indiana Natural Heritage Protection Campaign provided $10 million to buy and care for natural areas.
Dorothy Buell
And of course, Buell for her work to create Indiana Dunes National Park.
The people listed here should be memorialized for the difference they have made for Indiana, and their names should be inscribed in a place that will inspire future generations and remind our leaders that some of Indiana’s best people have made the state’s natural places a top priority. So I am renewing my call for my colleagues in land conservation, elected officials, community members and Hoosiers everywhere to revive and maintain the Indiana Conservation Hall of Fame.
Let’s make sure their names endure as long as their impact on the state and the people who love it.