|
The
Dave McNett
Environmental Educator
of the Year
Award
The purpose of the Dave McNett Environmental Educator of the Year Award is to recognize local citizens who have made a significant
difference in the area of environmental education within the past year or recent years.
The award is named in memory of Dave McNett, a tireless and enduring
volunteer and a charter member of BHAS who served on the board for three
decades in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. After 2000, he continued to serve as one
of our best bird identification volunteers, helping beginners and experts
alike sort out their bird sighting—often entirely through discussions of
characteristics over the telephone.
Learn more about Dave McNett.
Join with the Black Hills Audubon Society to celebrate
the achievements of these additional inspiring individuals. The following
is a list of previous winners of the Dave McNett Environmental Educator the Year
Award winners:
2012 Burt Guttman (read
about Burt)
see info
about his book 2011 Susie Vanderburg (read
about Susie)
2010 Jane Poole
2009 Komachin Middle School Science
Teachers
2008 Tom Schooley and Tim Sweeney
Based on nominations received from Black Hills Audubon members, the Education Committee recommends
individuals or teams for the award to the BHAS Board for final selection and
approval. In its recommendation, the Education Committee seeks to maintain
one of the fundamental principles of the Audubon Society as a grass-roots
organization with a long history of promoting, encouraging, and relying on local
citizen activism to achieve real improvements on environmental issues.
The presentation of the award is generally made at the annual dinner of the
Black Hills Audubon Society, and is featured in the next Echo newsletter
that follows the dinner (May-June edition).
The following criteria are used
in choosing the recipients of this award:
-
Work has generally been within the BHAS
geographical base (Thurston, Mason, and Lewis Counties).
-
Nominees may be members of BHAS, but don’t
have to be.
-
Results of their work made a significant
difference in the understanding of certain facets of our natural world
through study in our region.
-
Their work has been inspirational to those
with whom they have worked or taught.
-
Work need not have been done on a
volunteer basis but did involve volunteers or one’s own volunteer time.
One can be a professional in the field of environmental education but
need not be.
-
Nominees worked collaboratively with
others to attain educational goals of informing the public about an
aspect of our natural world pertaining to bird habitat or conservation.
-
Nominees have worked in the field for at
least two years.
More about Dave McNett
Dave
served in many leadership roles for BHAS; some of his best contributions
were in the form of letters to the editor and letters to officials in
which he took informed and principled stands on conservation issues.
Dave’s modesty and shyness belied a razor-sharp mind and ready sense of
humor. He mastered not only birds but multiple foreign languages. The
television quiz-show Jeopardy was a nightly tradition for Dave; he used
to take quiet pleasure in outperforming the contestants, especially in
science categories. Besides natural history and foreign languages,
Dave’s major passion was young people and their learning. In his
retirement years, he volunteered at several Olympia public schools,
tutoring in a variety of classes.
Because of Dave’s deep commitments to environmental care and lifelong
learning, the Black Hills Audubon board renamed the annual Education
award the "David McNett Environmental Educator of the Year Award".
|
