Mr. Paredes was the federal District Ranger for 245 miles of the Rio Grande that flows along the southern boundary of the Big Bend National Park. Together with his previous experience working as a river and trail guide in Texas, Mexico, Guatemala and elsewhere, he grew to be very knowledgeable about the Rio Grande, its flora, fauna, and the risks it faces from water pollution and diversions. Mr. Paredes also has been involved in private efforts to stop proposed low-grade coal mining in the Terlingua area, near his home.
Region: Trans Pecos
Fran Sage
Mrs. Sage led a career as a professor of English and a staff member of several Texas-based higher education agencies and associations. She later lived outside Alpine and was active in a variety of conservation efforts there, chief among them co-founding, organizing, and leading the new Sierra Club Big Bend regional group. She and the new Sierra group were engaged in several projects, including restoring the air quality of the Big Bend (where visibility of over 100 miles now falls to less than 10 at times), fighting proposals to dispose of radioactive waste in west Texas, and looking for more sustainable water options for the area. She also found time to write poetry, sometimes about the natural world around her.
Chester Rowell
Dr. Rowell was a botanist who taught at Sul Ross State University, Texas Tech University, and Angelo State University. He was a skilled field researcher and known for his tours with students and colleagues to Mexico, Concho Valley, Trans Pecos, and the Big Bend, where he collected specimens for large research herbaria. Concerned about the erosion of native ecosystems stretching from the playas of the Panhandle to the prairies of the Texas coast to the deserts of west Texas, he became one of the founders of the Texas Organization of Endangered Species, a group of scientists and laymen who started tracking and promoting protection of rare species in the state in the 1960s.
Bill Addington
A grocer and landowner in the small west Texas community of Sierra Blanca, Mr. Addington has been involved since the early 1980s in fighting proposals to dispose of sewage sludge and radioactive waste near his home in Hudspeth county. Mr. Addington, together with the Sierra Blanca Legal Defense Fund and other partners, successfully defeated the proposal to site a low-level nuclear waste disposal facility on the Faskin Ranch near Sierra Blanca, due to concerns over an active geologic fault running through the site, violations of the La Paz agreement with Mexico, and disproportionate impacts on the Hispanic, low-income area. In more recent years, Mr. Addington has focused more on worrisome groundwater export proposals, and on efforts to educate the public about the consequences of population and municipal growth in this high desert area.