Excerpt
The highlight of this year's annual conference was, for me, meeting Fred Woods. Fred is the first recipient of the Harold and Kay Scholl Excellence in Conservation Award. I'd read, of course, the biographical and other information that led the Awards Committee to select him for the award.
From the age of fifteen—after a visit from Hugh Hammond Bennett to the family farm in North Carolina—Fred committed himself to getting conservation on the land. He moved to Martin County, Indiana after World War II, where the topography is steep rolling hills interlaced with many small stream valleys. In 1947, he became a soil conservation aid with the Soil Conservation Service (now the Natural Resources Conservation Service) because he needed off-farm income and his concern for improving the gullied local land. After over 38 years of service, Woods' footprints are on every hillside and in every valley in Martin County. It was his dedication that formed two watershed flood protection projects; his dedication that modified his own farm tractor to demonstrate minimum tillage to local farmers; and his dedication that led to one of the first conservation plans on Defense Department property that …
Footnotes
Craig Cox, executive director for the Soil and Water Conservation Society since 1998.
- Copyright 2002 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.