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Maggie Wade Johnston

Nauvoo, Alabama
Chair
Alabama Chapter

Maggie Wade lives in an old bootlegger’s cabin that she refurbished and made into a comfortable, woodsy home on the banks of Talladega Creek in northeastern Alabama. Her "back yard," where she frequently hikes, is the Talladega National Forest, where the southern Appalachians begin.

A teacher of deaf children by day at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind, Wade is also affiliated with the Camp McDowell Environmental Center in Jasper, Ala., where she has been helping to coordinate an environmental camp for deaf children for nine years. She is also working in her spare time to improve the way the state’s environmental agency (ADEM) is run. "I’m the Sierra Club rep on the ADEM Reform Coalition," she explains, "and we’ve developed a ‘Blueprint for ADEM Reform.’ I’m on a planning committee the state developed to get input from stakeholders, so we’ve managed to get most of our issues presented to the state."

Wade recently spearheaded a successful effort to save an historic bridge that spans Talladega Creek near her home, and turn an abandoned stretch of highway into a walking and bicycle path.

"The old stretch of road is about a mile long, it crosses the river, and it winds through a very pretty area," she says. "It makes a nice pedestrian and bicycle track, and people walk their dogs and kids ride their bikes there. The demolition contract was for about $30,000, so not only could we get a park out of it, we could save money, too—the savings can be used for flowers along the new road or any number of things!"

Note: Since this profile was first published in the Planet newsletter, Wade has married fellow Alabama Chapter activist Mark Johnston (whose profile can also be found in Faces), and become the director of the Camp McDowell Environmental Center, where Johnston is executive director.

Published: March 16, 2007