Iowa Native ALDO LEOPOLD'S Legacy to be HonoredMembers of a newly-formed heritage group from ALDO LEOPOLD'S hometown of Burlington are bringing a noted Leopold scholar to their community as part of a season-long celebration of their native son's legacy.
On TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, Leopold biographer CURT MEINE will speak at a town meeting in BURLINGTON. It will start at 7:30 PM, 321 N 5th STREET at the FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. The event is hosted by the Des Moines County Historical Society. This is designed to raise awareness of LEOPOLD'S IMPACT ON ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY AND HIS BURLINGTON ROOTS.
The organization, known as the Leopold Heritage Group, has obtained grants from the Rand Lecture Trust-Burlington and Humanities Iowa to help fund the activities, with additional support from the Burlington Community Schools and the Des Moines County Conservation Foundation. Copies of Leopold's landmark book of essays, "A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC," are being provided by the LEOPOLD CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AT IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY IN AMES, Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever.
Meine is director of conservation programs at the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters in Madison. He is author of the biography Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work (1988) and co-editor with Richard L. Knight of The Essential Aldo Leopold: Quotations and Commentaries (1999). Meine also is a research associate with the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and founder/member of the Sauk Prairie Conservation Alliance in Sauk County, Wisconsin.
Jerry Rigdon, co-facilitator of the Leopold Heritage Group with his wife, Lois, said retired University of Iowa English professor Bob Sayre approached him nearly a year ago, suggesting that they do something in Burlington to honor Leopold and acknowledge how important his philosophy regarding our interaction with nature remains today. Both Rigdon and Sayre have noted that LEOPOLD IS REVERED BY NATURALISTS, ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND ECOLOGISTS WORLDWIDE, yet has received very little formal recognition in the town where he grew up and the state in which he was born.
For more information about other events or the Leopold Heritage Group, contact the Rigdons at (319) 753-2661, or by e-mail at ledgerguy@lisco.com.
Following is an excerpt from the 'October/Red Lanterns' section of "A Sand County Almanac":
"One way to hunt partridge is to make a plan, based on logic and probabilities, of the terrain to be hunted. This will take you over the ground where the birds ought to be.
"Another way is to wander, quite aimlessly, from one red lantern to another. This will likely take you where the birds actually are. The lanterns are blackberry leaves, red in October sun.
"Red lanterns have lighted my way on many a pleasant hunt in many a region, but I think that blackberries must first have learned how to glow in the sand counties of central Wisconsin. Along the little boggy streams of these friendly wastes, called poor by those whose own lights barely flicker, the blackberries burn richly red on every sunny day from first frost to the last day of the season. Every woodcock and every partridge has his private solarium under these briars. Most hunters, not knowing this, wear themselves out in the briarless scrub, and, returning home birdless, leave the rest of us in peace.
"By 'us' I mean the birds, the stream, the dog, and myself. The stream is a lazy one; he winds through the alders as if he would rather stay here than reach the river. So would I. Everyone of his hairpin hesitations means that much more streambank where hillside briars adjoin dank beds of frozen ferns and jewelweeds on the boggy bottom. No partridge can long absent himself from such a place, nor can I. Partridge hunting, then, is a creekside stroll, upwind, from one briar patch to another.… Almost anything can happen between one red lantern and another."
From "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold, (1949) by Oxford University Press, Inc., New York, NY
Please Give It A Read…And also, remember to CPR…CONSERVE/PARTICIPATE/RECYCLE
