The founder of Friends of Bandelier, Dorothy Hoard, had a passion for teaching, history, and conservation. When she died in March 2014, The Friends of Bandelier established the Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award to be given as her legacy and for her important contributions to Bandelier and the community.
The Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award recognizes contributions to the stewardship of natural and cultural resources in Bandelier or in the Los Alamos area is eligible to receive this award. Nominees should be individuals who have taken a lead role in a conservation effort that has had a significant positive impact to the community, the Monument, the Valles Caldera National Preserve, or the Santa Fe National Forest in the Los Alamos area.
The recipient must have demonstrated a successful role in a stewardship, educational, or preservation project:
(1) Stewardship of Natural Resources: This category pertains to identifying, evaluating, restoring, and preserving the landscape to preserve or enhance sustainability. Studying and mitigating the effects of global climate change would fall within this category.
(2) Stewardship of Pre-Historic Resources: This category pertains to surveying, cataloging, preserving, and interpreting sites and artifacts from the prehistoric period, before 1550. Archeological research with an emphasis on either preservation or interpretation would fall within this category. "Pure" archeological research would not fall within this category unless a connection to stewardship could be definitely established.
(3) Stewardship of Historic Resources: This category pertains to surveying, cataloging, preserving, and interpreting sites and artifacts from the historic period, after 1550. Historical research with an emphasis on either preservation or interpretation would fall within this category."Pure" historical research would not fall within this category unless a connection to stewardship could be definitely established.
(4) Activities Promoting Stewardship: This category pertains to performing acts of stewardship including fostering a greater public awareness of endangered resources and promoting responsible use of public resources. Efforts to inspire appreciation of and desire to protect potentially fragile lands, sites, and cultural artifacts would fall within this category. Purely artistic efforts (fiction, painting, music, drama, etc.) would not fall within this category unless a connection to stewardship could be definitely established.
(5) Mentoring of Future Stewards: This category pertains to motivating, equipping, and training the next generation of stewards. Forming, managing, or maintaining an organization devoted to either performing acts of stewardship (e.g. youth conservation corps) or encouraging sustainable recreation on public lands (e.g. youth outdoor club) would fall within this category.
Preference will be given to nominees who are shown to have benefited Bandelier National Monument, but efforts made to benefit Bandelier's neighbors and the broad Los Alamos/Jemez Mountains community will also be considered.
2023 DOROTHY HOARD STEWARDSHIP AWARD: RICHARD (MOUSER) WILLIAMS
The Friends of Bandelier have selected Dr. Richard Williams, a.k.a. Mouser, as the recipient of the 2023 Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award. Dr. Williams was chosen for his contributions to bird science, conservation, and education.
Mouser arrived in Los Alamos over 23 years ago as a summer intern at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The self-described “big city, flat land kid” from St. Paul Minnesota, once exposed to the mountains, canyons, caves, and good weather of the Pajarito plateau, soon became a devoted outdoors enthusiast. He was inspired to return to Los Alamos to work on his graduate degree and joined LANL staff as an electrical engineer in 2005.
Mouser, a list-motivated person, combined this trait with his love of photography to form a new hobby, birding. While showing his wife a collection of his bird photographs, she suggested he apply his penchant for lists into organizing the photos, and a birder was born. Over the years his birding has grown from photography and classification to the observation of relationships between different bird species. The interplay between the Raven and the Red-Tailed Hawk is one example, where Mouser notes the scavenger has time to play but the meal focused Hawk needs to hunt and rebuffs the Raven’s overtures.
Mouser’s interests further evolved from photographing birds to establishing bird focused citizen science efforts and introducing people to the joys of birding. These efforts include re-establishing the Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count (CBC) in Los Alamos County in 2015 after a more than 60-year hiatus. Los Alamos County CBC reporting numbers now rank 2nd highest among New Mexico counties, with only Bernalillo County having larger counts. These results are captured by residents in the international database website eBird.com, and then summarized in a report by Mouser to the Audubon Society. These data are available to anyone free of charge and are often used to support the study of bird populations and environmental health. Data from eBird have been used in hundreds of conservation decisions and peer-reviewed papers, thousands of student projects, and continue to inform bird research worldwide. Besides the CBC, eBird is used by local birders year-round to update the database.
In addition to running the CBC bird count, Mouser is involved in several other birding education endeavors. He is currently working on the Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Los Alamos County, Volume 2, with co-editor Michael Smith. The first edition was edited by LANL and published in hard copy in the 1990’s, but only a few copies remain. The second edition will appear on-line within the next year, and will be a valuable, updated resource for birders and nature conservationists. The Atlas will contain over 100 species from County, LANL, and Bandelier lands. Additionally, as an official eBird reviewer, he helps ensure data from Los Alamos County is of the highest quality. Mouser also manages the Los Alamos Rare Bird Alert, which logs and notifies birders of rare species sightings.
In addition to his extensive contributions to birding activities, he also serves on the Pajarito Environmental Education Center (PEEC) Board of Directors. Mouser lives in Los Alamos with his wife Nina, a LANL space scientist, and their five-year-old son Tycho.
2022 Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award: Sarah Milligan
Sarah Milligan is passionate about the environment and volunteers! She presently is the Natural Resources Program Manager at Bandelier National Monument. She is also the winner of the 2022 Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award given every March in honor of Dorothy who facilitated the development of the Friends of Bandelier.
Sarah gained her passion for the out-of-doors at an early age when she accompanied her parents to New Hampshire’s or Maine’s mountains to backpack. They lived in southeastern Michigan while her father worked at the Ford corporate office. Michigan was flat, no mountains, so their go to area was the eastern Appalachian Mountains where they found solitude and fun.
Sarah began her journey to becoming passionate about Wildlife Management at the University of Idaho and then Oregon State where she got her MS, Wildlife Management. Throughout her journey she worked at various national parks and monuments trying to decide what she really wanted to do, what was her passion. One of her first jobs after receiving her advanced degree was at Lassen Volcanic National Park on a Type Two fire crew. Then she worked at Acadia National Park in Maine in the fee program. By 2013, she decided to go back to school to get more information about Resource Management. She then came to Bandelier National Monument in 2015, seven years ago.
Her job at Bandelier National Monument has fulfilled her passion for large mammals such as deer and elk and working with the State of New Mexico to monitor reintroduced Bighorn Sheep (2016). But it is the projects that are volunteer projects that have given her new challenges and opportunities. Among the volunteer projects are bird banding, hummingbird banding, introduction of native fish species, and tree planting.
One of the successful programs has been the tree planting. Much of Bandelier was denuded of trees in the 2011 Las Conchas fire. The fire denuded not only ponderosa pine but also aspens, pinons, one-seed junipers and other species. To plant trees they had to wait until the environment began to heal. After over eight years, during the 2019 season, volunteers were mobilized and have planted thousands of trees in the past few years.
Another program that is a passion for Sarah is the bird banding program which was started in 2004 by Steve Fettig, over 18 years ago. This program has had a two-fold purpose 1) to get long-term data on bird migration 2) to get school children out to experience, close and personal, the bird banding process. The Nature Center has been very helpful in providing volunteers for the school programs. “The look on a child’s face as the recently banded bird flies from their hand is priceless,” Sarah said.
Long-term data is often hard to get. This program has helped the Park in many ways, most especially seeing the ups and downs of migrations as related to the climate. Sarah has been successful getting an intern from Mexico and hopes to get one from Venezuela soon. This provides needed information for migrations to areas in South America.
Another program that is close to Sarah’s heart is the re-introduction of native fish species into Frijoles Creek. The aftermath of the Las Conchas fire was destruction of all the fish species that lived in Frijoles Creek. Only native species are introduced because the stream has been cleared of all the non-native species. As a result, there will be no crossbreeding. Fish are introduced near Apache Springs crossing because of water temperature and pools.
2021 Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award: Myron Gonzales
The Friends of Bandelier are happy to announce that Myron Gonzales, a pueblo member of San Ildefonso Pueblo and an employee of Bandelier National Monument is the recipient of the 2021, Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award. Dorothy was the progenitor of the Friends of Bandelier, a historian, preservationist, and environmentalist who passed away in 2014. The award was established to recognize those who devoted time and effort in the pursuit of environmental stewardship at Bandelier and in the surrounding areas. The recipient will sponsor a project that will be funded by the Friends of Bandelier to the amount of $1000. Myron’s dedication and enthusiasm toward the stewardship of the cultural resources at Bandelier National Monument is very consistent with the tenets Dorothy Hoard brought to the park and surrounding area. Dorothy’s legacy continues to live on strong through people like Mr. Gonzales.
Myron’s roots run deep in the Jemez Mountains. His father was a member of San Ildefonso Pueblo and his mother, a member of Jemez Pueblo. He is a descendant of Pecos Pueblo, which at one time was one of the largest pueblos with over 2000 inhabitants. His third great grandmother being part of the last group of people to abandon it in 1838 and settling in Jemez Pueblo, from which comes part of his ancestry and deep roots to the mountains.
His dedication to the landscape, his relationship to the Rio Grande Valley, Pajarito Plateau, Jemez Mountains and Bandelier National Monument run as deep as his history to the area. He brings great care, with plenty of enthusiasm, to his ancestral homeland and the places where his ancestors walked. Today we easily access Frijoles Canyon by car forgetting at one time this was a very isolated and distant place. Frijoles canyon is known by the Tewa people as a boundary between two lingual types: Tewa spoken in pueblos to the north and Keresan spoken in pueblos of the south. It was a place of refuge to women and children during the pueblo revolt and a hiding place for bandits and those escaping from the law during Territorial Times. It is an ancient place of resident for both Tewa ( e.g. San Ildefonso, Santa Clara) and Keresan groups (e. g. Cochiti, Santo Domingo, San Felipe) of people. Frijoles Canyon was a special place with perennial running water that most likely drew ancestral inhabitants to the canyon. Today it is set aside as Bandelier National Monument and draws visitors from all over the world. It is to these visitors Myron wants to help understand the cultures of the area and the impact of the canyon and its ecology had on the myriad of people of the area.
It is Myron’s job at Bandelier is to be the preservationist of the Ancestral Pueblos and Civilian Conservation Corps National Historic District. He not only loves and cares for the land and buildings, but he also puts his heart into his preservation activities. For example, he sees the value and intricacy of a window built in the 1930s and wants to restore it to the beauty it once had. He grieves the irresponsible graffiti left by unthinking visitors on ancestral and historical places. Not only is he a preservationist but he is also an artist. In his art he wants to represent the beauty of the culture that the pueblo people represented in the past, even while living in difficult times. His work is displayed in the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D. C .and the Colorado History Museum in Denver, Colorado He has great interest in prehistoric textiles and their uses, himself having made two turkey-feather blankets, one being commissioned by the Colorado Historical Society and the other by a private collector.
But one of the things that Myron is most passionate about is the Bandelier Preservation Corps (BPC). It is a program that the Friends of Bandelier has helped sponsor and provides opportunities to local pueblo youth in taking an active role in preservation of their ancestor’s footprint—not only for others but for the future youth of their pueblos. The BPC provides meaningful summer employment for up to 10 native youth a year while providing continuing education stipend for the participants. Myron has provided leadership and mentor ship since 2015. Myron’s enthusiasm to the youth of his and other pueblos is apparent. He said, “If only one youth finds his special place and role , I have done my job.” He mentors those young people to become strong examples in their understanding of their history, the importance of speaking their respective languages, learning about their ancestral homelands, and the future challenges pueblo communities face.
Myron has set an example for every young person, puebloan and those outside the pueblo. His families from both Pueblos set a strong example for him. With a strong understanding of his obligation to his culture and family he has become a model for success in many ways. His compassion to the youth, commitment to their future, and his love of the area is an example of what Dorothy Hoard would have applauded. Congratulations to Myron Gonzales and his family. Myron enjoys spending his time with his wife, three children, and grandson. His grandson and soon to be second grandchild give him great pride and hope in the future of passing on the traditions, stories and lifeways of the Pueblo People.
2020 Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award: Lisa and will roig
This year the Friends of Bandelier is awarding to a conservation conscious adult but also a conservation passionate student. Our 2020 recipients Lisa Roig and her son Will, now a student at New Mexico Tech. Our recipients are doing Hummingbird banding at a site in Bandelier National Monument. Lisa will receive $1000 to use to buy necessary bird banding equipment on behalf of Bandelier. Funds that are not used for equipment will go to establishing a second banding site. Will receive a $500 to be spent towards equipment for bird banding. Previously, awards have funded tools used by Youth Corps in Bandelier Projects and for buses for student transportation to migratory bird banding sites in the fall.
Lisa moved to New Mexico 15 years ago and began to homeschool her children. She has a degree in Environmental Science from Cornell and wanted to keep them interested in science. She and Will went on one of Bandelier’s passerine banding and became hooked. They enjoyed hiking, bird watching, and being in the out-of-doors. To encourage eleven-year-old Will they kept volunteering. It is now a family affair—Lisa, Will, and her husband all help. They band from Mid-May to Mid-October.
There are four species that they find in Bandelier: Broadtail Hummingbird (Selasphorus platycerus), Black-chinned hummingbird (Archilochus alexandi), Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) and the Calliope Hummingbird (Sellula calliope). Both the Broadtail and Black-chinned hummingbirds breed in the area and are present May through October. The Broadtailed hummingbird is most common at lower elevations and the Black-chinned at higher. The Rufous and Calliope hummingbirds migrate through in the Fall of the year. Lisa finds the hummingbirds fascinating because of their use of the ecosystem. She particularly like the Broadtailed hummingbirds because it is common and breeds in the area so you can view all stages of growth. In addition, she noted “They have a lot of personality.”
Bandelier National Monument has been designated an “Important Bird Area” by the Audubon Society. We know that the varied habitats within the Monument support a wide variety of bird species, both for breeding and for migration. The biologists at Bandelier have been using bird banding as a tool to investigate species diversity, productivity and population trends within the monument for almost 20 years. Hummingbirds were not included in the bird banding program because specialized techniques are required to trap, handle and band these tiny birds safely. Former Bandelier wildlife biologist, Steve Fettig, recognized that a separate effort would be required to monitor hummingbird populations within the Monument and began to look for ways establish a hummingbird monitoring program in 2010. He partnered with the non-profit “Hummingbird Monitoring Network” to establish a monitoring site in Bandelier National Monument.
The Hummingbird Monitoring Network, or HMN, was established by Dr. Susan Wethington in 2000. HMN coordinates a network of hummingbird monitoring stations throughout the western United States, Canada, and Mexico. All of the stations use the same protocols to ensure that the data collected are consistent between stations, and that all of the hummingbird banders are using the best practices to ensure bird safety and high-quality data. Dr. Wethington, who works in Arizona, conducts training classes to teach hummingbird banding techniques and provides oversight of the HMN banding stations. Becoming a hummingbird bander requires training and a multi-year apprenticeship, so Steve’s effort to establish a hummingbird monitoring station at Bandelier required a lot of forethought. The current monitoring station has been in operation since 2015
Since Steve’s departure from Bandelier in 2014, Lisa has leading the project as a volunteer with support from the Bandelier staff and a cadre of volunteers. Lisa commented “We are learning a great deal about the ways hummingbirds use the habitats in Bandelier, and with continued monitoring over the long-term we will be able to identify trends in the hummingbird populations that visit the Monument.”
Specialized training is required, and a significant time commitment. Lisa made the commitment to train and take charge of the hummingbird project. Will, too young to become a bander, assisted in all aspects of the project.
Operating the hummingbird monitoring station requires a cadre volunteers to work alongside the lead bander. Among the volunteers are Lisa’s son, Will Schmidt, who has attended training courses and attends nearly every monitoring session. Her husband, Joe Schmidt, is also an active volunteer, attending every monitoring session and managing the logistics of the monitoring site while she is busy banding. Dr. Bob Walker has been at work with us since the very beginning of the hummingbird monitoring program. Bob helps with all aspects of monitoring, including trapping birds and recording data. Bob is a fantastic photographer, providing documentary photographs of the monitoring program and of individual birds during banding. He often acts as educator when we have visitors to the banding site, which is most welcome because I need to keep my focus on the health and safety of the birds while they are in our care. Beth Cortright has also been working with us since 2015. Beth pitches in on all aspects of the monitoring operation and can be counted on to be there in the very early morning hours of operation. Another faithful volunteer, Bob Loy is always the first to arrive in the early morning hours, Bob works all aspects of the monitoring station. Bob has become so involved that he took the banders’ training course last year and is now apprenticing to become a hummingbird bander himself. His commitment may allow us to add an additional monitoring station in a different habitat. The team also includes Sarah Milligan, Keegan Tranquillo, Melanie Boncella, Katie Sayre and a host of other intermittent volunteers.
Lisa says “ I am so grateful for everyone who donates their time and talents to the program. Special thanks go to Bandelier Supervisor Jason Lott, who has given his wholehearted support to this effort, even lending a hand in the field from time to time.”
2019 dorothy hoard stewardship award: Chuck Hathcock and Kaya Loy
The 2019 recipient of the Dorothy Hoard Stewardship award is Charles (Chuck) Hathcock. Chuck was nominated by Bandelier National Monument for his many contributions to the park. Chuck, an ecologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory for almost 21 years, has contributed much to the bird banding program at Bandelier, tracking birds during the breeding season and fall migration. This program first was instituted by Bandelier biologist Stephen Fettig in 2004 and Chuck volunteered his time for many years at the sites. When Stephen left Bandelier, the program was continued in 2016 with Chuck, an expert volunteer with the proper federal permitting for bird banding. He has provided annual training to Bandelier bird banders as well as interacting with students when they visit the banding sites at Bandelier. Chuck has also volunteered in many ways to Bandelier beyond the bird banding program including providing talks for the public and supporting the Park with surveys for the federally endangered Jemez Mountains Salamander.
Chuck said “Working with the kids is especially rewarding. I remember with one school group at the migratory bird banding site, I was showing them, up close, a Red-shafted Flicker, which is a large woodpecker. It was squawking so loudly and the students were amazed at the sound.” But, he said, “I then showed them the underbelly, specifically the undertail covert feathers.” The black and white feathers on the undertail of the flicker, forms the shape of a heart. “The students stood in amazement; their sense of awe magnified at the wonder of nature.”
Of special interest to him are the conservation of birds, amphibians and reptiles. He is originally from Phoenix, Arizona. He has a BS from Arizona State University in Conservation Biology and a MS from New Mexico Highlands University in Biology.
Also in 2019, enthusiastic and conservation minded 7th-grader, Kaya Loy. Kaya is the daughter of Bob and Laura Loy of Los Alamos. Laura was raised is Los Alamos and they moved back to Los Alamos when Kaya was in the first grade.
Kaya has been involved in doing nature projects since she was in the 3rd grade. Kaya decided that Barranca School should become Certified Schoolyard Habitat. She sent out a petition to the students to generate interest in the school sponsoring the project. Along with others, she worked to prove the schoolyard could be certified.
Along with her friend Emily McLaughlin, and Bandelier Ranger Sarah Milligan as mentor, she developed a brochure of the common birds of the area for Bandelier National Monument. They developed a brochure and invited local photographers to illustrate each bird. The publication is called the “Junior Ranger’s Guide to the Birds of Bandelier.”
For her Girl Scout Silver award, Kaya created a video for that teaches people how to treat archeological sites and assure the preservation of the abundant sites of the Plateau.
2018 Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award: John Hogan
The Friends of Bandelier have chosen John Hogan as the 2018 recipient of the Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award.
The award is given annually to someone who has contributed to the health and well-being of our landscape and community. Dorothy, the founder of the Friends of Bandelier, died in March 2014, and the award is a legacy to her passion and care of the place she loved.
John has spent his life reaching out to others in many different ways, teaching Life Saving and Water Safety, as a Rehabilitation Assistant for blind veterans at a VA hospital, as liaison for visiting researchers during his tenure as a USGS Physical Scientist at Bandelier (He simultaneously completed a degree in Biology from UNM.) John served a term on the Board of Directors of the Pajarito Environmental Education Center (PEEC), where he developed and led the Living Earth Adventure Program (LEAP) for teens.
As co-founder of the Volunteer Task Force after the Cerro Grande Fire, he taught hands-on Fire Ecology and worked with children to rebuild trails damaged by the Cerro Grande Fire. As a BAER (Burn Area Emergency Response) team member, he worked throughout the west helping to educate and involve affected communities in rehabilitating burned watersheds. He is currently an Assistant Ski Patrol Director for Pajarito Mountain Ski area and an instructor in the National Ski Patrol’s Outdoor Emergency Care course.
John was raised in Northern California where he surfed, skied, and backpacked in the high Sierras. He credits his parents for instilling in him a love for the outdoors. He became enchanted by the landscape of the Jemez Mountains when he first visited Northern New Mexico in 1975. He moved here permanently in 1978.
“I loved the mountains, mesas, and canyons and have never grown tired of the view and ever-changing light as you drive the main hill road,” John said.
After the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire, John, Gerry Washburn and Laura Patterson (teachers at Mountain School), and Craig Martin were instrumental in developing the Volunteer Task Force. The Task Force was organized to help educate the public about fire and fire recovery through hands-on restoration and reforestation projects. They went to other communities after the fire and gave talks about defensible space, fire, and fire recovery, and organized community-based recovery projects, making a difference to many communities as well as Los Alamos.
Probably the most unique thing that the Task Force accomplished was getting people out into the burned area to help in rehabilitation efforts. John and the others interacted with over 6,000 students from as far north as Taos and as far south as Clovis. Not only did they teach, but helped people heal and move forward in hope.
Today, those who move to Los Alamos see the mountain with all its beauty, they don’t see the black. And, those who lived through the Cerro Grande Fire have begun to see the new beauty in the way nature heals.
John is married to Cindia, a retired REMAX realtor. They have one daughter, Molly, who has recently moved to New Zealand with her husband, Erik Loechell, on one year work visas.
2017 Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award: Michele Altherr
The Board of Friends of Bandelier have chosen Mountain School teacher Michele Altherr of Los Alamos to receive the 2017 Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award. Michele was selected for her work with the children of Los Alamos and her many contributions to the Pajarito Environmental Education Center that have enhanced Los Alamos as a place where discoveries of nature and the out-of-doors are made. As Michele reminds us, “play outside and explore the wonders of nature.”
Whether you are a child or an adult, the restorative power of nature has been shown to improve imagination and physical and mental health. Because of Michele’s advocacy, Los Alamos has experienced many ways to “play outside and explore the wonders of nature.” This has contributed to the health and well-being of our community. She was a co-founder of Pajarito Environmental Education Center in 2000. Because of the founders, many hours of effort by Board members, and community members, in 2014 Los Alamos open a spectacular Nature Center, run by Pajarito Environmental Education Center (PEEC). In 2016, the Nature Center had an annual visitation of over 18,500 visitors and served over 6500 school children.
But Michele did not stop with the idea of a Nature Center, she developed engaging programs offered by PEEC that have touched the lives of many children—from community residents, New Mexico residents from Espanola to Albuquerque, and those who live in other States. Programs such as Nature Odyssey, Park Flight, Birds with a Purpose and other outdoor programs took children on voyages of discovery from the Valle Grande, to Bandelier, and the Rio Grande. They learned from local naturalists, scientists, artists, and gardeners. Most of all the children grew in personal confidence, and played, making learning about our landscape their own.
Michele also promoted clubs that focused on children making a difference to their community. The children in her PEEC after school Kinnikinnik Club learned about the habitat needs of butterflies and built a butterfly garden designed and advocated by Dorothy Hoard, which won an award from Keep New Mexico Beautiful. The Kinnikinnik kids went on to run a yearlong reusable bag campaign, which resulted in Smith’s Marketplace receiving recognition from their corporate office for their dramatic decrease in plastic bag use. Michele initiated and sponsored another club at Mountain School, the “Green Team.” This team of students led a school-wide Cool the Earth Project to reduce personal carbon footprints. Another year they led the school in a competition to collect and recycle the most aluminum cans. The team counted, calculated and publicized their efforts, which resulted in a win. The children chose to donate their $2,000 award to an animal rescue group. They followed this up with a school-wide campaign to collect and recycle the most plastic bags in the State of New Mexico. They squeaked out a win and the bench they won sits proudly in front of the school.
More recently, she and her friend Selvi Viswanathan led the successful effort to certify Los Alamos Certified as a Wildlife Habitat. This included her Green Team kids planting habitat friendly gardens and certifying Mountain as a schoolyard habitat. Beyond all this Michele has been a busy teacher for 20 years who is passionate about making learning active and relevant whether the subject is in science, math, reading or writing.
Michele developed her love of the out-of-doors playing in the woods and streams of the Maryland countryside. She graduated from the Florida Institute of Technology with a BS degree in ecology. She met her future husband there. They have two children, who are now often found working and playing in the outdoors. She received her elementary education degree from UNM and her educational leadership MA degree from Highlands University. She is a graduate of Leadership Los Alamos and has served on the Parks and Recreation Board and the Board of Directors for PEEC, at one time serving as President. In her spare time, Michele loves xeric gardening, hiking and collecting folk art.
The Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award is a yearly award given in the name of Dorothy Hoard who founded Friends of Bandelier in the 1988. The Board has determined the award will be given to someone who has contributed to the health and well-being of our landscape and environment in March, the anniversary of Dorothy’s passing. Dorothy died in 2014 and the award is her legacy to her advocacy for the landscape she loved.
The award includes a picture of Bandelier painted by Dorothy. The recipient can choose a $1000 project for Bandelier in accordance to their passion for the environment. Previous recipients are Dale Coker and John Bartlit.
The Board is excited about awarding Michele the Stewardship Award. We feel children are the future and the ones that will hold Dorothy’s legacy in their hearts in what they do to protect our Earth. Teachers are essential to this ongoing process of getting us out, enjoying our landscape, and learning about stewardship.
2016 Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award: John Bartlit
The Board of Friends of Bandelier have chosen John Bartlit of Los Alamos to receive the 2016 Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award. John was selected for his advocacy of providing clean air and water in New Mexico. Because of his advocacy the public, elected officials, and the State Legislature have come to understand the importance of the air we breathe and the water we drink.
John and his wife Nancy became concerned about the haze ruining the mountain views in the early 1960s. John decided to find out what the industry was saying at the legislature—and the rest is history. John and Nancy Bartlit, Mike and Mary Lou Williams and a few others co-founded the New Mexico Citizens for Clean Air and Water, Inc, in 1969.
Founding an organization is more than just a gathering of minds. There was work to recruit and organize chapters around the state; to advocate for appropriate laws and regulations; to put pressure on polluting utilities and mines to clean up specific pollutants, and ultimately to enforce the law as citizens. These efforts occupied John’s non-work time—evenings and weekends. His engineering orientation to innovate a technical solution and awareness of legal process combined with rare expertise and the dedication of a wondrous, rare team made it all possible. As a result of this effort, scrubbers were put on the Four Corner’s Power Plants reducing the haze that first challenged him to act.
In 1971, John started writing columns for the Los Alamos Monitor as a way to raise issues, to advocate, to inform, and to clarify. He sought to put the enormously complicated arguments about proposed laws, regulations, and technology into plain English for regular folks. Today he also writes for the Los Alamos Daily Post a column called “Tales of our Times.”
John has also been a Community activist helping found Vision 2020, a small group of concerned environmentalists in Los Alamos who sponsored speakers and discussion. John has worked hard to address problems not covered by existing laws. One way is to convince the corporate world to go beyond what is required by regulation whenever feasible. He convinced the utility to continue running scrubbers at their design efficiency and to reduce their annual emission at little extra cost. In doing this, he stressed the fact that improved controls represent more jobs, not less.
2015 dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award: Dale Coker
Nominations for this year’s award were reviewed by the Board and we are pleased to give the 2015 Dorothy Hoard Stewardship Award to Dale Coker.
Dale grew up in North Carolina, but fell in love with the Southwest in 1988 when he worked at Mesa Verde National Park with the Student Conservation Association (SCA). He landed a seasonal position with the Bureau of Land Management in Grand Gulch and in the off season attended the National Park Service Law Enforcement Academy. That experience qualified him for a ranger position at Bandelier—and he stayed with the job for more than 20 years. Dale served as the backcountry ranger for the park as well as patrolling the front country and adjacent Department of Energy lands. He spent summers in the Bandelier Wilderness, patrolling on horseback from a base at Capulin Canyon. Remembering how he got his start, he established an SCA program at Bandelier. Dale also successfully enforced the Archeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 by obtaining the conviction of a pot hunter who looted an Ancestral Pueblo site.
More than that, Dale always had his camera with him, and for many years his photographs have been used to demonstrate the beauty of Bandelier and the Los Alamos area. Dale lived in the park and spent many of his days off snapping photos. His publication list is extensive, and he contributed the cover photo for Dorothy’s fourth edition of A Guide to Bandelier National Monument.
In the years before his retirement in 2015, Dale supervised trail construction at Bandelier. In the wake of the Las Conchas fire, that assignment was quite challenging! Dale successfully worked with the youth of the Bandelier Conservation Corps to rebuild many of the trails in the park.
The Board of the Friends of Bandelier thank Dale Coker for his dedicated service to protect the natural and cultural resources of Bandelier National Monument, for his beautiful, insightful, and often dramatic photos of the beauty of the park, for his trail improvements while working with young people, for his friendship with Dorothy, and for his love of the Bandelier landscape.