Wilderness Heroes

Bob Handley never gives up, ever. At age 78, this West Virginian is as tough and experience-weathered as the mountains he calls home. Over eight decades, Bob has explored countless caves, survived an accident that could have left him paralyzed, attended the signing ceremony in the White House Rose Garden of the historic 1977 strip mining bill he worked to pass, and today he is fighting for wilderness protection for West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest. Based on his track record of success through perseverance, he is sure to succeed again.

You learn a lot about Gerry Jennings' style as a volunteer wilderness leader when you hear her say, "we have to educate before we can activate."

Gerry, who is completing her term as president of the Montana Wilderness Association, moved to Great Falls, Montana, with her husband and four young children in the mid-1970s. "We wanted a place where we could go to mountains, rivers, and just get outdoors," she remembers. "Living in front of a computer is a matter of necessity, not choice!"

Mike McCarthy has been working to protect areas on Mount Hood and in the Hood River Valley for decades, but his family has been involved for generations. It all began when Mike's grandfather homesteaded in the area in the early 1900s. With this history, one can understand why Mike says, "It's a family goal and a personal goal to protect farm land and special natural areas around Mt. Hood."

In late March,, Senators John Sununu (R-NH) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) introduced the New Hampshire Wilderness Act of 2006, legislation to permanently protect 34,500 areas in the Sandwich Range and Wild River region of the White Mountain National Forest as Congressionally designated wilderness.

No one was more joyful, proud, grateful, or responsible than Fred Lavigne and Evelyn MacKinnon, and the Friends of the Sandwich Range.

For more than three decades, Wesley Leonard has helped inspire and lead the movement to protect wilderness in the southwest. Aided by his ability to eloquently articulate the values of wilderness, knowledge of the land earned from countless hours spent in wild country (he spent 100 days on the trail in 2005), and an enthusiasm for getting out on the ground, he has been involved in the passage of wilderness bills. But what most impresses people about Wesley Leonard is not his past, but his plans for the future.

If you let him, Kurt Kuznicki will talk about wilderness for hours. A field superintendent in the construction industry from Reno, Nevada, Kurt has been involved with the conservation movement for several years. Married, with two children, he's become one of the great volunteers working to protect Nevada's last remaining lands.

"It doesn't matter what your job is, or how much you know about wilderness history," says Kurt. "You know what's right or wrong in your heart. And you know that these places should be protected for our children, and theirs."

I am here today because I think it's important that you know that people like me exist in the Portland metro area and people like me value roadless and wilderness areas. As you can plainly see, I am a woman - but the obvious stops there. I am also a Republican who has voted in every single election I was eligible to vote in since I was 18 yrs old. I also hunt and fish - I own two birddogs, three shotguns and six fly rods, know how to use them, and use them on a regular basis. I can put food on my family's table without going near a grocery store. And I know that the best hunting and fishing opportunities are located in roadless and wilderness areas.

"I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and
big success. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that
work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of
the world like so many rootlets. Or like the capillary oozing of water,
which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride." These
words of philosopher William James had a special meaning for Rich
Gordon, who passed away October 28 after a long and courageous battle
with cancer.

An avid outdoorsman with a taste for politics, Rich had recently traded

All I can say is climbing the corporate ladder gave me no peace, and these days I stick to the peaceful climb up a mountain," Pamela White, 2003.

Pamela White always had a love of America's wild lands, and she ultimately put her passion to work in 2003 when she went to work for Friends of Nevada Wilderness in Ely, NV. There, she was the rural organizer and leader for a Nevada Wilderness Coalition effort to protect the last remaining wild lands in White Pine County as wilderness.

Family and childhood experiences shape our lives. Matt Bullard points to his upbringing in the commercial fishing town of New Bedford, MA, going door to door campaigning with his father, the mayor of their town, and sailing out on the open ocean as the things that instilled in him a love of the great outdoors, a respect for those who make their living off the land, and an appreciation for the political process. Those are the same qualities that make Matt Bullard such an outstanding advocate for Idaho's breathtaking wild lands.