Photo: Annie Awards
Please join us on Saturday, July 22, 2017 to honor and celebrate the 2017 Lone Star Chapter Environmental Award winners at a special banquet in Austin! This year's event will be held in a private room at Chez Zee in midtown Austin. This is a time for us to look back at the previous year and recognize the great work of our volunteers, staff, and other individuals with special awards to show our appreciation for their dedication to the environment and beyond.
Join us for a terrific night of celebration to honor 2017 award winners! We will also have a birthday cake for dessert as we celebrate Sierra Club’s 125th anniversary! Tickets can be purchased via Eventleaf.
Going with a group? Please consider sponsoring a table! Contact Evelyn Merz at (713) 644-8228 or elmerz@hal-pc.org if you or your organization is interested.
Sponsorship Levels:
$1,000 John Muir (includes 8 tickets/supports event)
$500 Thoreau (includes 4 tickets/supports event)
$250 Emerson (includes 2 tickets/supports event)
$100 Frost (includes 1 ticket/supports award guest ticket)
2017 Award Winners
Special Service Award - To be given to the person or persons, members or non-members, who either on one or more occasions have performed a special service to the Sierra Club or to environmental protection.
Award recipient: Joan Meeks
Recognition: Joan Meeks is an integral player in creating a semi-annual e-cycling event for the Greater Fort Worth Sierra Club, which helps in creating awareness of the group in the Fort Worth community. She is also apart of several environmental and recycling boards, such as Bluebonnet Resource and Conservation Development, Keep Colleyville Beautiful, Keep Texas Beautiful, State of Texas Alliance for Recycling, and Tarrant Coalition for Environmental Awareness.
Special Service Award - To be given to the person or persons, members or non-members, who either on one or more occasions have performed a special service to the Sierra Club or to environmental protection.
Award recipient: Coalition Opposing the 105 Toll Road and Vidor Loop 299
Recognition: These special service award activists have worked to form a coalition to oppose the 105 Toll Road and Vidor Loop 299. This achievement is instrumental as Sierra Club recognizes their efforts among many activists’ works to conserve the East Texas Big Thicket area.
Chapter Service Award - To be given to a Sierra Club member or members who have contributed significantly to the administrative activities of the Chapter, and/or Group, including fundraising, membership, publications, etc.
Award recipient: Lon Burnam
Recognition: Lon Burnam’s environmental advocacy spans many years and the wearing of different hats to push for environmental protection, notably as a state representative. However, this particular award for Chapter Service is to recognize Mr. Burnam’s work as a volunteer, particularly for his contributions to the Lone Star Chapter Political Action Committee. He has contributed greatly to the functioning of the committee, organizing fundraisers in the Fort Worth area so that the Chapter can back up its endorsement of a candidate with a political contribution. His personal political experience has been valuable during endorsement deliberations of the Chapter Political Committee and in helping the Fort Worth Group to recognize how to leverage a political endorsement into a vote for the environment.
Chapter Conservation Award - To be given to a Sierra Club member or members who have worked diligently during the past year on a particular issue or who have revitalized the conservation efforts of the Chapter or Group.
Award recipient: Lori Glover
Recognition: Lori Glover deserves recognition for her dedication and personal action in organizing and leading the battle against construction of the Trans-Pecos Pipeline in the Big Bend country. After participating in a protest march against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Energy Transfer Partners headquarters in Dallas, Ms. Glover returned to Alpine where she organized and led a three mile march in which 200 people participated. A second march happened a month later where about 150 people gathered and marched to the TPPL crossing on Highway 90. A third local and Native American-led protest south of Marfa gained traction in national and international publications.
Chapter Conservation Award - To be given to a Sierra Club member or members who have worked diligently during the past year on a particular issue or who have revitalized the conservation efforts of the Chapter or Group.
Award recipient: Chris Guldi and Dick Guldi
Recognition: Chris and Dick Guldi are tireless activists working on local environmental issues within the Dallas Group. They faithfully attend hearings, disseminate information and lobby politicians on behalf of the most pressing environmental issues in North Texas. In addition, they coordinate their efforts with other conservation groups such as the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Public Citizen, North Texas Renewable Energy Group, Downwinders At Risk, and Environmental Defense Fund.
Environmental Reporting Award - To be given to the reporter(s) in any media who have produced a series or single report which has provided exceptional coverage of an environmental issue. A volunteer award is given to a person or persons who has produced media projects or published Chapter or Group newsletters.
Award recipient: Marty Schladen
Recognition: Marty Schladen is being given this award for his coverage of the previously unreported oil spills resulting from severe storms. His analysis exposed the failure of state regulators to take action to curb spills even when photographic proof was available to them. The images showing “huge plumes of oil streaming from production sites and ponds of fracking fluid that were inundated by floodwaters” prompted several bills to be filed to the 85th Legislative Session.
Environmental Reporting Award - To be given to the reporter(s) in any media who have produced a series or single report which has provided exceptional coverage of an environmental issue. A volunteer award is given to a person or persons who has produced media projects or published Chapter or Group newsletters.
Award recipient: Shannon Tompkins
Recognition: Shannon Tompkins deserves recognition for his investigative reporting of critical issues facing our Texas state parks, wild places, and wildlife. He is the only Houston media reporter that consistently explains the budget issues facing the Parks and Wildlife Divisions of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. His articles include control of invasive aquatic species, chronic wasting disease, and the controversy over developing regulations to protect wild herds of deer from exposure to the virus, restoration of grasslands, and the ill-considered plan to introduce warfarin in a major poisoning program to control feral hogs in Texas.
Art in Service to the Environment Award - To be given to an individual or group for an outstanding work of art in any medium or discipline in service to the environment. The award will be conferred only when merited.
Award recipient: Shelia Rogers
Recognition: Shelia Rogers uses art as environmental advocacy to heighten the public’s awareness of the impact of plastic pollution on our oceans and beaches. After she realized that plastic debris on Corpus Christi beaches was becoming more common than the seashells she so enjoyed, Ms. Rogers used the creation and exhibition of art using plastics she collected from area beaches to visually document alarming environmental change. In particular, we applaud Ms. Rogers’s exhibition, “Oceans of Plastic”, which we believe fulfills her stated intent to use her words “to raise awareness of this pressing consumer and environmental issue, while motivating viewers toward a plastic-use reduction revolution.”
Art in Service to the Environment Award - To be given to an individual or group for an outstanding work of art in any medium or discipline in service to the environment. The award will be conferred only when merited.
Award recipient: Kathie Sever
Recognition: Kathie Sever uses wearable embroidery art as a personal statement and translating the personal connection into a means to financially fuel environmental advocacy. She has created special embroidered patches that evoked the beauty of the Big Bend country to support the Big Bend Conservation Alliance and donated 100% of the proceeds to BBCA. To celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the National Park System, Ms. Sever and her company, Fort Lonesome, created a marketing campaign to sell a set of patches emblematic of eight National Parks and Monuments in support of the National Park Foundation. Ms. Sever has supported national parks through additional donations of wearable art to fundraise for the National Park Foundation.
Environmental Justice Award - To be given to an individual or organization that has done outstanding work toward identifying and addressing environmental problems that have a disproportionately adverse effect on communities of color and/or low-income communities. The award will be conferred only when merited.
Award recipient: The Sandbranch Community
Recognition: Sandbranch, Texas, is a small unincorporated community in Dallas County, whose residents have been fighting for more than 30 years to have access to clean running water, but between the machinations of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Dallas County officials, the community continues to go without this most basic and critical of human rights. The Sandbranch Community formed a coalition – not only with community members – but with a cross-section of the greater community of elected officials, the legal community, and an array of national and state agency personnel. All united around a common but groundbreaking goal of providing potable water to the overlooked community of Sandbranch through its first water supply system.
While the Environmental Justice Award is formally being presented to the Sandbranch Community, the Lone Star Chapter also recognizes the invaluable cooperation that Pastor Eugene Keahey and the Community received from Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, attorney Mark McPherson, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development, the Federal Emergency Management Agency Region 6, the Office of Environmental Justice at Region VI of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. For that reason, the Chapter would like to recognize all of the broad coalition that contributed to the resolution of this notable environmental justice issue.
The Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter would like to thank all award recipients for their tireless efforts to preserve and protect our environment. All of these award recipients will be recognized for their outstanding role in environmental conservation and protection at Chez Zee in Austin on July 22. Please purchase your tickets today!