By Brandt Mannchen 

Dick Donovan, a real East Texas denizen, died recently.  I was lucky to get to know Dick and to share adventures and stories with him.

Dick loved hardwoods trees.  It’s not that pine trees didn’t interest him and that he didn’t love them too.  He tried awful hard to grow Longleaf Pines on some land he had near Lufkin.  It’s just that hardwood trees spoke to Dick and to the wildlife that he loved and enjoyed.

Dick lived and grew-up in and near Zavalla and Lufkin, Texas.  He worked for Temple-Inland for years and with his wife Bonnie, and his daughter, Gina, got into real estate.  Dick was the kind of person who could make you feel comfortable and make it seem that you had known each other a long time.

He loved to go in the morning to certain breakfast haunts in Lufkin and talk with a crew of people that he knew at these restaurants.  He would tell tales that would bring smiles and chuckles to whoever was in attendance.

Dick loved the woods so much that he became incensed when he saw over his lifetime the loss of the hardwoods and Longleaf Pines that he cared about.  Dick got involved with the Texas Committee on Natural Resources, now called the Texas Conservation Alliance, to do something about the loss of forests he wanted to protect.  This particularly applied to Angelina and Sabine National Forests.  TCONR and the Sierra Club were allies fighting against clearcutting and hardwood destruction in these and other national forests.

I met Dick in the late 1990’s at a TCONR gathering when we were paired to lead visitors along Green Creek in Upland Island Wilderness Area.  I’ll never forget after we began our walk coming upon a very large Black Hickory tree and being impressed that this drought-hardy forest citizen, was growing next to the creek.  Dick enjoyed my surprise and passion and decided that this city-boy was AOK.

Dick’s biggest claim to fame was his canoe trips down the length of the Neches River, from just below Lake Palestine to Beaumont, Texas.  He did this several hundred-mile canoe trip at least twice, with Gina acting as his “sag wagon” expert, leaving supplies at key locations, so he could keep going and camping out on sandbars on the river.

Dick loved the Neches River and wanted to see it designated as a “national wild and scenic river”.  Although this didn’t happen, Dick brought the issue of saving this East Texas river from inundation by dams and lakes to the attention of the media and the public.  That attention helped people have hope and gave them the means to fight against those “damn dam projects” that would have submerged more of the Neches River forever.

Dick wrote a book about his paddling adventures on the Neches River, “Paddling the Wild Neches”, which is a good read that will keep your interest from the beginning to end.  Gina Donovan, not to be outdone, also wrote a book about the Neches River, “Neches River User Guide”.  Like father, like daughter!

Dick’s exploits helped give momentum and emphasis to the fledgling Neches River National Wildlife Refuge that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Conservation Fund were pushing forward.  The good publicity that Dick created with his Neches River paddling journeys helped keep that momentum going forward.  Finally, in 2010, a lawsuit by the City of Dallas and the Texas Water Development Board to stop the refuge was denied by the Supreme Court.  That meant that this newest wildlife refuge could at last be acknowledged and come into permanent existence.  

My favorite story about Dick, is when we were walking in Upland Island Wilderness Area after having seen the “Falls on the Neches River”.  As I oohed and aahed about the large hardwood trees in the floodplain, my stash of money fell out of my pocket without my knowledge.  True to Dicks’ playful nature, he pocketed the cash and when we got out of the forest, suggested we go and have supper.

When it came time to leave the restaurant, Dick reminded me that I needed to pay my fair share.  The look of astonishment and embarrassment on my face when I realized my money was gone was priceless, from Dick’s point of view, and when he restored the cash to my hand, I knew I had been “had” by the “expert”.

That’s how I remember Dick, a fun person to be with, but with a heart and soul that was as deep as East Texas and the hardwood forests and the Neches River that he loved.  Good-bye Dick, time was much too short, and you will be missed!