Conservation History Association of Texas
Texas Legacy Project
Oral History Interview
Nature Conservancy in Texas

Interviewee: Carol Dinkins
Date: October 25, 2022
Site: Houston, Texas
Reels: 4548-4550
Executive Producer: Lydia Saldana
Producer: Jeff Weigel
Field Producer / Chief Interviewer: Lee Smith
Videographer: Curtis Craven
Writer / Editor: Ron Kabele
Transcriber: David Todd / Trint
Item: Dinkins_Carol_NCItem7_HoustonTX_20221025_Reel4548-4550_Audio.mp3

[Numbers refer to the interview time code]

Carol Dinkins [00:00:15] Yes. I’m a high school graduate from Mathis, and then I went to the University of Texas in Austin.

Lee Smith [00:00:22] And what did you pursue there?

Carol Dinkins [00:00:26] My degree is in English and Spanish. And I got a teaching certificate, secondary education. And I still have it. I never used it, but I found it a few weeks ago.

Lee Smith [00:00:40] And then where did you go?

Carol Dinkins [00:00:43] Well, I also did my first year of law school in Austin at U.T. and then I moved to Houston and transferred to the University of Houston Law School. And that’s where I got my law degree.

Lee Smith [00:00:58] Was there an aspect of your early life that sparked an interest in the outdoors?

Carol Dinkins [00:01:03] My maternal grandfather was a farmer, dairy cattle and a row cropper. And I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. And so I was outdoors because on a farm, that’s where you go.

Carol Dinkins [00:01:20] And I also spent a lot of time with my dad when he would go out and look at things in the country and he put a subdivision in at Lake Mathis, well, Lake Corpus Christi. And I spent a lot of weekends with him outside.

Lee Smith [00:01:39] Was your grandparents’ farm around Mathis?

Carol Dinkins [00:01:42] It was in Alice, which is about 20 miles from Mathis.

Lee Smith [00:01:49] Do you have any early recollection of being outside? I mean, I guess you were outside all the time, but was there a particular season or a particular time of day that you made a connection with the natural world?

Carol Dinkins [00:02:05] I think it was mostly going fishing with my maternal grandmother, and I went sometimes with my paternal grandfather. But in Mathis we had. Two seasons really – we had hot and very hot.

Lee Smith [00:02:23] And was this freshwater fishing or did you go down to Corpus? What kind of fishing did you do?

Carol Dinkins [00:02:29] With my grandmother, we fished in the lake. And with my grandfather I fished with him several times in Rockport or North Beach and around Corpus. Because both of those were close. No, we just went catfishing. We’d wait till the fish came by and we’d look at the water until the fish decided to bite. But it was just nice being out on the water. So we all spent time outdoors. None of us had air conditioning. And you couldn’t stay in the house in August in Mathis. It was too hot. There at least was some breeze, oftentimes outside.

Carol Dinkins [00:03:13] But no, I really got into more of the natural world once I got out of law school, because when I graduated law school, there weren’t any women in the big law firms in downtown Houston, really not in big law firms anywhere in the state of Texas. And I had a toddler and a brand new baby when I graduated from law school. She was born right after I took the bar and right before I started work.

Carol Dinkins [00:03:48] But I was offered a position as a research and writing associate with the Texas Law Institute of Coastal and Marine Resources.

Carol Dinkins [00:04:01] When I graduated law school, there were no courses in environmental law. It didn’t exist.

Carol Dinkins [00:04:07] The laws passed about the time I got out of law school.

Carol Dinkins [00:04:11] And I worked in that program on a full time basis for two years and really did a lot of research in seashore boundary law and coastal and marine law. And that involved as well, things like fresh water inflows. And so I had two years of being paid what lawyers in downtown law firms were being paid. But I was learning new stuff. And that’s what really got me much more into the environmental area and conservation.

Lee Smith [00:04:49] And so then after that, is that when you went to Vinson and Elkins?

Carol Dinkins [00:04:52] Yes, I did that for the first two years, and then I really wanted to get into the practice of law. And one of my law school classmates from when I was at the University of Texas was taking some classes at U of H to finish her degree. And her husband was an associate at Vinson and Elkins, and they were looking for new hires because they were very busy in what was called the public finance area, which included what land use they did.

Carol Dinkins [00:05:27] And they … her husband, she said, “Well, I’ll ask Carol if she knows anybody.” And her husband said, “Well, why don’t you ask Carol if she’s interested?”.

Carol Dinkins [00:05:38] And I was, and I interviewed and they offered me the job. But I had a contract and so I couldn’t start. This was in March or April. And I couldn’t start until after Labor Day.

Carol Dinkins [00:05:51] And between when I was offered the job and when I was able to start work, they had three different clients of the firm, one of whom was Perry Bass and one of whom was George Mitchell. And I’ve forgotten the other. It might have been Gerald Hines Interests. But each of them had a legal issue involving new environmental and coastal laws.

Carol Dinkins [00:06:19] And so the managing partner told each of those clients, “Well, we don’t have anybody who does that, but we have an expert coming in, in September, a two-year lawyer.” So they, and they told me when I interviewed that they didn’t have an environmental law practice other than air and water. And I said, well, what I really do is coastal law and marine law, not admiralty. And they said, “Well, we don’t have any of that kind of work. But if we get it, we’ll give it all to you.” And they did.

Lee Smith [00:07:01] And in that interim, all of a sudden, boom, these two clients they waited for you to come on board.

Carol Dinkins [00:07:07] Yes. Their problems were not urgent. They could, they could wait a few weeks, which is what they did, because these were brand new laws. They passed in the legislative session that year. And so they weren’t taking effect until about the time I started work.

Lee Smith [00:07:26] Right place, right time.

Carol Dinkins [00:07:28] It was. It was.

Lee Smith [00:07:30] And then. So you’re you stayed at Vinson Elkins. And when did you become a partner?

Carol Dinkins [00:07:38] January 1 of 1980.

Lee Smith [00:07:41] And how many female partners were at Vinson Elkins at that time?

Carol Dinkins [00:07:48] Well, on January 1 of 1980, there was one. There hadn’t been any.

Lee Smith [00:07:55] What about across Texas?

Carol Dinkins [00:07:57] There hadn’t been any.

Lee Smith [00:07:59] And so was, I mean, that must have been quite a challenge. Or was it a challenge? Or did you just plow through?

Carol Dinkins [00:08:09] Well, I wanted to make partner. And so I wasn’t concerned about being the first woman to make partner other than I knew that there weren’t any others because there were no women there who were senior to me. There had been three women who started a year or two before I did. But by the time I’d been there about two years, all of them had gone elsewhere. And so my real push was to make partner, not not worry about being the woman partner.

Lee Smith [00:08:45] But then you’re there. And did you feel any pressure? I mean, you’re the first one, you know. Did you feel any pressure to, you know, not do anything wrong or I guess there’s always that.

Carol Dinkins [00:09:08] Well, I didn’t want to do anything wrong as a lawyer.

Lee Smith [00:09:10] Yeah.

Carol Dinkins [00:09:11] And so that was what I was concerned about.

Carol Dinkins [00:09:14] But it was … there were small things. For example, I didn’t talk about my kids, but the men would talk about coaching softball or baseball or having to leave to go to a football game. But I didn’t say things like that because I wanted them to focus on me being a lawyer, not a mother. And so, you know, it was more subtle, I would say.

Lee Smith [00:09:46] And then how did you get into the Justice Department? Because you were at Vinson Elkins and then take me on that part of the journey.

Carol Dinkins [00:09:59] When I was in my last year as an associate, I guess next to the last, you know, it’s the last year, Governor Clements appointed me to chair the Coastal Zone Management Study Commission, or Committee, that he formed, because when he took office, the state had pulled the proposed Texas Coastal Zone Management program.

Carol Dinkins [00:10:29] And I had testified on behalf of a number of clients at one of the public hearings, and I said what I thought needed to be changed or improved about the program before it was submitted for approval by the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Carol Dinkins [00:10:53] And one of the brand new special assistants to Governor Clements when he took office read that testimony and he invited me to come up and meet with him, which I did. And then he recommended to the Governor that they create the committee and that I chair it. And the Governor did that.

Carol Dinkins [00:11:18] And so I met Governor Clements, and then I met with him a couple of times to brief him on what we were doing and to urge that he submit the program the way we revised it, for preliminary federal approval so Texas could get more money. I did all of that on a pro bono, pro bono basis with the support of the law firm when I was an associate. And it was a lot of work which I say because it took a lot of my time.

Carol Dinkins [00:11:53] But I flew to Washington once a week for several months at firm expense and negotiated for four hours in the afternoon with the Office of Coastal Zone Management. And then I would fly back that evening. And so I would miss a full day of work out of the week to do that.

Carol Dinkins [00:12:16] But because I knew Governor Clements, when Ronald Reagan was elected, Governor Clements had been very instrumental in his campaign in Texas. And Perry Bass was one of my clients in coastal matters. And Governor Clements and Mr. Bass talked and they decided that it would be good if I went to Washington into the new administration.

Carol Dinkins [00:12:53] And I said, “Yes, I would be interested, but only in a couple of jobs.” And they never talked to me directly about it. Somebody else talked about it with me. And they, whoever that was, talked to, I think it was Mr. Bass, and he talked to Governor Clements. And Governor Clements, I’m told, went to Washington, to the Office of Presidential Personnel before inauguration, and said to them that he had three people that he wanted to see get appointments. And one of them was me.

Carol Dinkins [00:13:30] And so I went and interviewed and they interviewed me for several positions. The one I really wanted was the Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, at Interior. But President Reagan had his own man from California who’d headed up their Fish and Wildlife Agency, and he was a great assistant secretary.

Carol Dinkins [00:13:58] But they had these other positions they wanted me to consider, and one of them was at Justice. And I interviewed with the attorney general the week of inauguration. And then they offered me the Assistant Attorney General for Land and Natural Resources. That’s what it was then. Now it’s Environment and Natural Resources. And so I headed a litigating division. And we did all of the government’s natural resources and energy and environmental litigation. It was a great position.

Lee Smith [00:14:43] And you were the first woman in that?

Carol Dinkins [00:14:46] Yes. Well, yes.

Carol Dinkins [00:14:48] Yes. And then I left in the middle of ’83, because really, people don’t stay in those positions very often for a full four years. And I was commuting between Houston and Washington. And so every week, I would come home on Friday night and then fly back Sunday night or early Monday morning.

Carol Dinkins [00:15:13] And I came back to Vinson and Elkins and was back at the firm for about six months. And the deputy attorney general, which is the number two person and the person who is the acting attorney general, if the attorney general’s traveling or is recused from a matter or a case. The attorney general asked if I would come back as the deputy because I knew the people at the White House. I knew the people on the Hill that the department dealt with a lot. And I was used to dealing with the public affairs. And I knew all of the other assistant attorneys general, of whom there are a dozen and five, six of whom are heads of litigating divisions.

Carol Dinkins [00:16:07] And at first I said, “Oh no, I just got back into my law practice and I’m back home with the kids. I’m not commuting.”.

Carol Dinkins [00:16:16] But I came on home because he tracked me down at the airport. I’d been to see him that day just to visit. And that’s when he decided he was going to see if I would come back. And he tracked me down at the airport when I was waiting to board the plane. And I said, “I can’t do that.”.

Carol Dinkins [00:16:35] But I got home and talked to people and they said, “Well, you can’t turn that down.” It was it was really great position.

Lee Smith [00:16:44] And again.

Carol Dinkins [00:16:46] Yeah, there hadn’t been a woman. No.

Lee Smith [00:16:50] So it’s almost like every position you’ve had, you’ve been the first woman to have that position.

Carol Dinkins [00:16:58] I was very fortunate. I was at the right place at the right time. And it was time. It was 19, at that point, it was 1981 and ’83. That’s late in the world for there not to have been a woman in those positions.

Lee Smith [00:17:18] Well, and you clearly held your own as you’re being stopped at the gate at the airport and they’re begging you to come back or actually to, you know, to move up.

Lee Smith [00:17:33] And wasn’t there an instance where you had two cases that were 3000 miles apart and and you won both of them or something. How do you do two in one simultaneously?

Carol Dinkins [00:17:45] Well, they were negotiated settlements. And that was a win for my client because they were both very, very difficult problems. And yes, one was in Texas and one was in Alaska. And the, in the settlements, the resolution of their difficulties were signed, executed, dated and announced the same day.

Lee Smith [00:18:18] Now, I just want to roll back just a little bit to this testimony that you gave that some staff member of Governor Clements read and then recommended you to chair that committee on the coastal stuff.

Carol Dinkins [00:18:40] Yes.

Lee Smith [00:18:40] So were the recommendations that you delineated what y’all implemented in your, in that subsequent committee?

Carol Dinkins [00:18:50] Yes. Yes. I had spent some years representing several different clients as the State of Texas was developing the original Coastal Zone Management Program, and that was done with federal funding under the Coastal Zone Management Act. But once that program was written, then there were problems with it. And they were not, they were not devastating problems, but they were problems for people with a lot of interests on the coast of various kinds real estate, oil and gas, agriculture, manufacturing.

Carol Dinkins [00:19:37] And so those of us who followed the development of the program wanted it to be workable in a way that would not have a bad economic impact on the state. And that’s what my testimony was directed toward. And as I said, I had a number of clients that had differing interests, and so I could address various aspects of what their concerns were with the program.

Lee Smith [00:20:13] How satisfying was that to have what your your vision become policy?

Carol Dinkins [00:20:21] Well, it’s very satisfying, as you might imagine. And very, very gratifying to be able to use what you’ve learned across a lot of different issues and and economic interests that are so important in Texas and be able to come up with a way to achieve what’s good for the state as a whole and the public, but in a way that doesn’t cause difficult ramifications.

Carol Dinkins [00:21:01] And but it took a while, and that’s why I say I went for months to D.C. every week to negotiate the program. And what we would do is I would draft it and then we would have a meeting of the task force and talk about the different aspects of what we had done.

Carol Dinkins [00:21:24] And we had representatives of industry, real estate, farming or agriculture and environmental people on that task force. And we would come to a consensus about what we all could support and then write that down and then review it again in the full task force and discuss it. And so it was an iterative program.

Carol Dinkins [00:21:52] And the one that had been originally intended to be submitted for federal approval had been drafted by very good consultants, and they just didn’t quite hit what needed to be done to make it palatable across the board.

Carol Dinkins [00:22:19] That was a long time ago.

Lee Smith [00:22:21] Yeah. But, you know, it’s one thing to be, you know, opportunistic and have things, you know, being at the right time in the right and all. But but also, you seem to have carried the weight of these positions with aplomb. I mean. That’s just my observation.

Carol Dinkins [00:22:49] Well, thank you.

Lee Smith [00:22:57] So, you’ve been at it. Did you have to move to Washington for that deputy AG?

Carol Dinkins [00:23:02] No, I did not. I continued to commute. But I’m, both times that I worked at Justice, I did have, the first time I bought a condominium and the second time I’d already sold it. And so I leased someone else’s home when they were going overseas.

Carol Dinkins [00:23:23] And during the summers, my daughters would come up. And then every weekend we’d go on trips. We’d go to the national parks, we’d go to the military battlegrounds. And they knew Washington and the East Coast better than most of the people who grew up there. It was a great opportunity for them. And so they love history because of that.

Lee Smith [00:23:46] Were they in middle school? High school? Was it?

Carol Dinkins [00:23:49] The younger one was in elementary school and the older one in junior high when I started. And when I finished, they were in junior high and high school.

Lee Smith [00:23:59] Perfect.

Lee Smith [00:24:03] So now after that, you come back to Vinson Elkins.

Carol Dinkins [00:24:08] I did, yes.

Lee Smith [00:24:09] And then how did you become involved with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department?

Carol Dinkins [00:24:14] Well, first I was involved with the Nature Conservancy, and Andy Sansom is who recruited me to the board. Andy and I had a mutual client back in the late ’70s. And we really enjoyed working together.

Carol Dinkins [00:24:30] And then because I had been at Justice and been head of the Environment and Natural Resources Division, he thought that would be a good background to go on the board of the Conservancy. And you’ll see a theme here.

Carol Dinkins [00:24:48] When… Thank you.

Carol Dinkins [00:24:58] When Governor Bush ran for office, he ran against Ann Richards. And I’m sure you recall that. And Karl Rove called me. I was in a client meeting in New Jersey. I remember it well. We didn’t have cell phones then. And my secretary, when I called to check whether I had any messages, she said, “Somebody named Karl Rove is trying to reach you, and here’s his number.”

Carol Dinkins [00:25:31] And so I went to a payphone in the hotel lobby at the Marriott at Newark Airport and called Karl. And he asked. We talked for a little while and he said that governor. Well, then he was not governor, that George W. Bush really wanted to have a woman as his campaign treasurer because he was running against a woman governor and that they thought that it would be best if he had a woman treasurer who was known in the business community in Houston, because he was from Dallas.

Carol Dinkins [00:26:13] And so I said, “Well, I need to talk to him about how he’s going to campaign and what issues he’s interested in and that sort of thing.”.

Carol Dinkins [00:26:24] And so he called me at home one Saturday morning and we talked for more than an hour and had a very good conversation. And I really liked and appreciated his approach to the things I was asking him about.

Carol Dinkins [00:26:41] And so I took that position, which meant that my name was on all of the ads and that sort of thing.

Carol Dinkins [00:26:50] And then when he was elected governor, Andy suggested to the appointments office of the governor that they consider me for appointment to the Parks and Wildlife Commission. Which is why I said you’ll see a theme here. And they called and invited me to come and meet with them and then to meet with Governor Bush. And I did. And he asked me if I would like to serve as a member of the Commission.

Carol Dinkins [00:27:38] And I said, “Well, that’s the best appointment that you have to make other than perhaps an appointment to the boards of Regents.” And he said, “Would you like to be on a Board of Regents?” I said, “No, no, no, I want to be on the Commission.” It was a delightful conversation, as you might imagine. But that’s how I came to be on the Commission. And what a great appointment that was.

Lee Smith [00:28:07] Why?

Carol Dinkins [00:28:09] Because you’ve got all of the parks, you’ve got fishing. You’ve got the state natural areas. I can’t think of anything better to do. I loved being on the Commission.

Lee Smith [00:28:21] And how many parks would that be?

Jeff Weigel [00:28:26] What years were you on on the commission?

Carol Dinkins [00:28:30] That appointment was in 1997.

Lee Smith [00:28:34] And they’re for six years?

Carol Dinkins [00:28:36] It’s a six-year appointment.

Lee Smith [00:28:39] And how many parks did you go to?

Carol Dinkins [00:28:44] I went to all of the parks that were in the system at the time. My late husband and I visited every one of them, and at that time there were either 128 or just over 130. Some of those now have been transferred like to local governmental entities, and the Texas Historical Commission has others of them. But there’s still plenty.

Carol Dinkins [00:29:14] I had two different times I was supposed to go to Palo Pinto when it was still in development and the ice storm last year, knocked, I think that was the storm. Anyway, two different things happened and so we didn’t go.

Lee Smith [00:29:28] Why did you do that? Why did you go to all the state parks? That’s a conscious effort that you did.

Carol Dinkins [00:29:35] Oh, yes. Yes. It’s it took pretty much every weekend. We put a lot of miles on our vehicle because Texas is so big.

Carol Dinkins [00:29:44] And I wanted to do it because I thought that a member of the Commission really should see each of the parks. And it’s immensely helpful when you’re doing things like budget if you have actually seen what you’re dealing with.

Carol Dinkins [00:30:05] And it was very amusing because once I had started going to all the parks, the other members of the Commission were aware of it. And if we had something come up like about Hueco Tanks, none of them had been there. And so they all turned to me and said, “Well, what about this?” And I was able to tell them my perspective from having been there. And it really was helpful. And I’m glad I did it. I just enjoyed it immensely.

Carol Dinkins [00:30:36] There is a park just two miles from Mathis, where I grew up – the Lake Corpus Christi State Park, and we went out there for Girl Scout field trips and to learn about plants and to do hiking. And we went out there sometimes on school field trips, and my family went out there a lot.

Carol Dinkins [00:31:02] And so I thought everybody had a state park. I didn’t know that there were people who didn’t ever go to them.

Carol Dinkins [00:31:09] And so being on the Commission and having a real mission to go see the state parks was it was just a joy.

Lee Smith [00:31:18] Well, and I was an employee at the time.

Carol Dinkins [00:31:24] Yes.

Lee Smith [00:31:24] I remember hearing about that. And I also remember the impact that it had on staff, because we often felt like the Commission kind of took us for granted. And it seemed like you didn’t. And it really inspired us and validated us to have that level of of interest in, you know, our day-to-day function. It made it it made an impact much farther than just the Commission room.

Carol Dinkins [00:32:03] Well, thank you. Thank you. And I wouldn’t have thought of that. But, you know, it was just it was so much fun to be out in the field with the people who were working there.

Carol Dinkins [00:32:18] And one of my favorite visits was over in deep East Texas near, near Beaumont. And the park manager was and I didn’t call ahead to let them know I was coming because we had so many to visit. And I never knew for sure when we were going to get some place at a certain time. And I didn’t want to add to our logistical challenges by being on a tight schedule.

Carol Dinkins [00:32:52] And we got to that park and the park manager, the superintendent, was at a school or some school function and talking to the schoolchildren about the state park and about what animals were there and and what you can do when you go to a state park. And he was due back in, I think, 30 minutes or something like that. So I said, “Well, we’ll just wait and so that we can meet him and visit with him about the park.”

Carol Dinkins [00:33:26] Well, he came back and he was carrying a little case. And so I asked him about his, his trip with the students and such. And he said, “Oh, yes, I take things from the park and show them.” And he opened his little cage and he got out a snake and he handed it to me.

Carol Dinkins [00:33:48] And I took it because my best friend when I was in elementary school, her father was a herpetologist working on his Ph.D., but he worked out at the state park and he was doing his dissertation and he had all of these snakes in little glass cages in their garage, and we would go out and play with them. And so I knew how to take the snake and, you know, it wrapped around my arm.

Carol Dinkins [00:34:17] He was quite shocked. And Bob is standing there laughing at him. But that was, you know, stuff like that was just a lot of fun.

Lee Smith [00:34:38] Done that. And we done that. Now, that was a favorite moment, but is there a particular region or park that you, that’s very special to you out of the Parks and Wildlife system?

Carol Dinkins [00:34:54] Well, that’s like asking if you’ve got a favorite child. That’s, but I will say that Palo Duro Canyon is just an incredible place. That’s a world-class environment. And for spring break last year, my family went to Palo Duro and we went glamping in one of those neat new tents out there. But there was a tornado the day before we, well, the day that we got there and it tore up the main entrance gate and a small building there at the entrance gate. And so they had to close. They had to evacuate the park. And they shut it down and it was shut down for the next two days.

Carol Dinkins [00:35:46] But they let us in because we had reservations for two tents. And we had Palo Duro essentially to ourselves. There were maybe 30 other people in the park. But it was an incredible experience and they’d been fully booked because it was spring break. But that park is, you know, just an extraordinary place.

Carol Dinkins [00:36:12] I went there with the Commission the first time I went. And we had, well, we were in the 4th of July parade in Canyon, Texas. And then we toured Caprock Canyon to see the new bison herd that had just been transferred there from the from the XIT Ranch, and they were very wild. But it was so great to go out there and see those two parks.

Lee Smith [00:36:48] Have you seen “Texas”?

Carol Dinkins [00:36:50] Yes. Yes, we saw a performance and that was so wonderful.

Lee Smith [00:36:56] So you’re on the Commission of Texas Parks and Wildlife. Are you still associated with the Nature Conservancy? Well, still on the board there?

Carol Dinkins [00:37:05] Well, yes, but then I went on to the global board of the Nature Conservancy, and so I was on the state chapter board, the global board and the Commission. And I was practicing law full-time.

Lee Smith [00:37:25] How did you find time for any of this?

Carol Dinkins [00:37:28] Well, Bob did everything, including one time when we were going to have photographs or a video or something at a Commission meeting, and I said, “I can’t wear the suit that I brought and and be on camera because it was too busy of a pattern.” I forget what it was. And I said, “Bob, can you go and buy me some clothes?” And so he did. And he he just walked in. He picked out exactly what I wanted, paid for it. And it was the right size. It was the right color. It was everything. But he did everything.

Lee Smith [00:38:08] So he was a big supporter of this conservation work.

Carol Dinkins [00:38:16] He grew up hunting and fishing, and he grew up very, very poor. And that was subsistence hunting and fishing for him and his grandparents and his sister. And he loved to hunt and fish. And when I went on the Commission, the morning that I was going to drive to Austin for my first board, Commission meeting, we’re sitting at the breakfast table and he looks at me very seriously and says, “There’s just one thing you’ve got to remember that goes into the rules when you start writing the regulations.” And I said, “What’s that?” He said, “There are no bag limits and no seasons on the spouses of commissioners.”

Lee Smith [00:39:12] So where did he grow up?

Carol Dinkins [00:39:14] In Pennsylvania, in the coal country. His grandfather was a coal miner.

Lee Smith [00:39:21] So how did you all meet?

Carol Dinkins [00:39:23] When he got, he was in the Marine Corps. He was 17 when he enlisted. And so his mother had to sign him in because he was too young. And he went straight to the Marine Corps from high school.

Carol Dinkins [00:39:38] And then he got out and was working in a plant and the river flooded. They had a massive flood. And so they shut down the plant. Had to rebuild it. And he decided he would come to Texas and visit one of his Marine Corps buddies who was on the police force in Texarkana. And he came to Texas for the first time. And he called his mother and said he was coming home to pack, that he was going to Texas.

Carol Dinkins [00:40:11] Well, he was on the police force and he went to night school and got a college degree. And then his friends in the DA’s office talked him into going to law school. He married a woman who was a paralegal in the DA’s office in Texarkana, and they moved to Houston. And she got a job at my first husband’s law firm as a paralegal. And so I met Bob through, through that connection because they would come to firm parties that I would be at.

Carol Dinkins [00:40:54] And she died of cancer at age 42. And about five years after that … Well, Bob was in the office of the city attorney. And then he went to be an assistant attorney general in Austin and then moved back to Houston and went back to the city attorney’s office. And he was at a continuing legal education program at Vinson and Elkins one day at noon. And asked the receptionist on the floor where he was attending, that if she knew me and the receptionist said, “Oh, yes, she offices on this floor and she’s actually here today”, which I almost never was because I traveled all over the country. And so he showed up in my office and said, “Let’s have dinner sometime.” And so we did. Which was great for me.

Lee Smith [00:41:59] So what did he like? So, you know, if he likes the hunt and he’s in Texas, what was what did he like to hunt and do outdoors?

Carol Dinkins [00:42:07] He liked to go deer hunting and he loved to fish. We fished quite a lot and mostly in saltwater. But he liked the freshwater fishing, too. And we did some of that.

Lee Smith [00:42:27] Okay, so I’m gonna get back on script. I deviated there.

Jeff Weigel [00:42:31] I’m glad you’re doing some talking about Bob, though.

Carol Dinkins [00:42:35] Thank you.

Jeff Weigel [00:42:36] Don’t hesitate.

Jeff Weigel [00:42:38] And I wish I had gone deer hunting with him.

Carol Dinkins [00:42:42] He wanted very much to come with you. He hunted down at Independence Creek. He had a great time. And.

Lee Smith [00:42:51] With McCurdy?

Carol Dinkins [00:42:52] I don’t know. I wasn’t there.

Jeff Weigel [00:42:54] Not with McCurdy.

Jeff Weigel [00:42:57] But, no.

Carol Dinkins [00:42:58] And, and he went hiking out in the Davis Mountains. And I was working out at Los Alamos, and he was out hiking for about five days with his backpack in the Davis Mountains. And he kept getting hit by a bird and he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. And when he complained about it to John Karges, Karges looked at him and said, “Bob, you’re wearing a red flannel shirt. That was a hummingbird. And it thought you were a flower.”

Carol Dinkins [00:43:35] He went fishing and in one of the ponds there and he saw, I think it was, would it have been an eagle? A very large bird. And it caught a big fish out of that pond and fought to drag it over to the shore. But it couldn’t. It couldn’t fly with that fish because the fish was so big, so big. So the bird would eat a little bit of it and fly away and then come back and eat a little bit more. And Bob watched that bird and that fish for a long time. He just got the biggest kick out of that. But he loved the Davis Mountains, too.

Lee Smith [00:44:21] So why is working with The Nature Conservancy important to you?

Carol Dinkins [00:44:26] Well, like the out-of-doors. And my favorite courses in law school were property. And I and just I like land. And I like the water by the land or on the land. And so I have a house at the beach. So then I’m by the water and I can watch the birds out in the wetlands across the street, which is a state park. And I have a house in the country and we have two large ponds on that property. I just I like being on the land and I want the land protected.

Carol Dinkins [00:45:11] And I’m very concerned about how fragmented it’s becoming in Texas. The the numbers that we saw at the most recent board meeting, are numbers that I’ve been seeing for a good while. But but they keep on growing and we’re not going to have large tracts of land being managed as a single tract of land. At the rate we’re going, there will be a lot less of the rural feel because things are being just chopped up.

Carol Dinkins [00:45:51] And I care about the natural systems. And I want my kids and grandkids to have the same opportunities to enjoy them that I’ve had. And to be able to go out and hunt and fish. They all fish. They don’t any of them hunt. But were they to take it up, it would be available.

Lee Smith [00:46:15] Well and everything you’ve described to me about yourself at all these different positions, you have been a problem solver and the Nature Conservancy in a lot of what it does is a problem solver. So I’m seeing a a blend, a complementary blend of of mission, of outlook and of talents that you both seem to. So the fit is symbiotic, I think. And am I off-base there? Would you would you say that that’s what we do? That the Nature Conservancy is a problem solver?

Carol Dinkins [00:47:03] Absolutely. And the problems that the Conservancy solves, it then takes those solutions to other places and other people. And I think that is really the great strength of the Conservancy. So that what we learn about grasslands and about prairies in Texas and Oklahoma can go to South America and go to Africa and go to other places. But being able to to work within those those systems is just so important.

Carol Dinkins [00:47:42] It’s not passive ownership. It’s ownership that accomplishes a lot more than just keeping that piece of land, whatever it is, in conservation status.

Carol Dinkins [00:47:57] And problem-solving is exactly what I liked about being a lawyer, and that’s why clients would come to me. They’d have a problem and I would resolve it. And mostly through negotiated resolutions, not through adversarial ones, even when I was defending very serious government enforcement actions against them. And that’s why clients came to me, was because I had a track record of resolutions, not fights. And that’s better. It’s less costly, it’s less time-consuming, and it’s generally going to be a better result than getting into big adversarial situations.

Lee Smith [00:48:49] And more fulfilling.

Carol Dinkins [00:48:51] Yes, it is. It certainly is for a lawyer. Or at least I think it is.

Lee Smith [00:49:00] So how does the TNC fit into the conservation puzzle, with all the different interests out there? How, how does it fit?

Carol Dinkins [00:49:17] Well, the Nature Conservancy works in partnership with so many other organizations, whether it’s governmental or non-governmental. And I think that’s a key part of what the Conservancy is really adept at.

Carol Dinkins [00:49:36] And, and I think that that you see that with Powderhorn, and the Parks and Wildlife Foundation and the Nature Conservancy, and the federal money from the Deepwater Horizon settlement all coming together to put that really important large piece of property into conservation status and have it be under Parks and Wildlife so the public can enjoy it. And I think that that that’s just a result that is so wonderful for the State of Texas and for the public generally.

Lee Smith [00:50:35] So let’s get specific. Well, you were just specific on Powderhorn, but the Texas City Prairie Preserve. What was your involvement with that?

Carol Dinkins [00:50:46] I was chair of the state chapter board when we had the opportunity to bring that property into the Conservancy ownership and stewardship. And that happened because one of the lawyers who was in my group at Vinson and Elkins is married to what had been the land man at Mobil Oil, and that was that property came within his purview.

Carol Dinkins [00:51:22] And he learned that there was a highly endangered bird species on the property. And he didn’t want the bird to become extinct on Mobil Oil’s property. And so he asked if the Conservancy would be interested in acquiring it.

Carol Dinkins [00:51:47] And we talked about what the property was and where it was located. And it’s right in a huge industrial area. You stand on the preserve and almost all around you you see the towers and the stacks for industrial development because it’s right on the edge of Texas City where there are a lot of refinery and petrochemical plants.

Carol Dinkins [00:52:16] And you’ve got, what, 2000 acres of native prairie there and it’s open land, open prairie. And then you had had this bird. And I just thought, what a great thing to bring it into conservation protection. Never mind the bird. You’ve got the prairies here.

Carol Dinkins [00:52:40] And having grown up on the coast of Texas and having fished in the bays and having worked on the Coastal Zone Management Program and just all the things that are in my background, I thought that was such a piece of good luck.

Carol Dinkins [00:52:55] And when you go out there today, you can see how special that property is to be in that location and to be a coastal prairie with all the grasses. And of course it has some invasive species, but the staff out there has done a magnificent job of getting those under control. And of course now it’s a great seed bank, which is, I think, quite remarkable.

Lee Smith [00:53:28] So how is that used? How is that seed bank used and why is it important?

Carol Dinkins [00:53:35] You can’t buy those kinds of seeds on the commercial market. These are native prairie grasses, and the things that you can buy commercially are not pure, like the seeds that you’re able to harvest out off of that prairie.

Carol Dinkins [00:53:54] And right now, there is a a really marvelous example of what you can do with that kind of seed, because Memorial Park here in Houston, which is a great amenity for the City of Houston, has two new tunnels that go over Memorial Parkway. And these tunnels now are a land bridge between the north and the south part of Memorial Park. And that land bridge is being seeded with the native prairie grass seeds from the Texas City Prairie Preserve.

Carol Dinkins [00:54:37] It’s just, I think, a marvelous story, an incredible story.

Lee Smith [00:54:43] How cool is that? And you can you can drive right by it.

Carol Dinkins [00:54:46] Well, and walk up to it, and soon you’ll be able to walk across it. Yeah, it is cool. It’s just it’s about as wonderful a result as you can imagine and not one that we could have envisioned 20 years ago.

Lee Smith [00:55:04] And that’s kind of the beauty about a lot of these preserves. You’re just scratching the surface on how they can be beneficial.

Carol Dinkins [00:55:12] Yes. Well, if you go to the tall grass prairie, Clymer Meadow, and I’ve been out there, I don’t know, 3 or 4 times and and talk to the staff there about the seed bank and what it means and who can access that seed bank and why they would use it. It’s just, you know, it’s the very practical stuff that the Nature Conservancy does so well and that not very many organizations are even trying to do.

Lee Smith [00:55:50] I mean talk about a legacy. It’s it’s giving back and in the most holistic way, you know. So what, were there any big challenges to that project of Texas City?

Carol Dinkins [00:56:09] Well, the first one was to get the home office to agree that we could accept that gift. And they were at the time, it seemed to me they were very skeptical about it, which I found mind-boggling. How could we not take this property? It’s right on Galveston Bay. It is undeveloped coastal prairie that there’s not very much of. You can see all of the industrial and residential development right around it. And it’s, you know, a really important resource, a natural resource. So that was the first challenge.

Carol Dinkins [00:56:55] And the scientists had to go through their scoring process, which I wasn’t familiar with. And it was a great relief when word came back that it had scored very well and that we were going to be able to accept it.

Carol Dinkins [00:57:13] And then Mobil Oil gave some funding from their foundation to help with a an endowment for the preserve. And there were several functioning, I don’t remember if they were oil wells or gas wells, but they brought in some additional money, money that could be used to serve for managing that preserve.

Carol Dinkins [00:57:50] But then that led to very, very difficult times for the Conservancy as a whole, because The Washington Post decided to make a big deal out of the fact that the Conservancy owned property where there was oil and gas development.

Carol Dinkins [00:58:13] And it was not a fair story. The reporter who wrote it, the preserve manager at the time, told me he had already written the article before he ever came down to look at the preserve. And that was in 2011. And he he didn’t want to be educated about it and refused to acknowledge that it had zero impact on the surface of the property and on the natural environment of the property. It was very unfair.

Carol Dinkins [00:58:51] That then led to congressional hearings and all of that was right at the time that I was chair of the global board. It was right after that that I became chair of the global board. But I only did that for six months because I was diagnosed with cancer and I couldn’t manage the treatment and manage the fallout from that Washington Post article and the congressional investigation and serving as board chair. So I resigned.

Carol Dinkins [00:59:31] But I got to stay on the board and they gave me an extra year to make up for the time that I was in treatment and couldn’t make the meetings. And then when John Morgridge was the board chair, he very kindly, yes, I think it was John, said that he had to miss a meeting and would I chair that meeting. And so I got to chair one full meeting of the global board, which was great fun.

Lee Smith [01:00:04] So tell me about how did Roger Tory Peterson wind up in a ditch at the preserve.

Carol Dinkins [01:00:15] Well he was, he found out, probably through the Fish and Wildlife Service, that the Conservancy was going to acquire that land. But Mobil still owned it. And I don’t know who called, but somebody called Byron Morris, the Mobil land man, and said that Roger Tory Peterson, it must have been Fish and Wildlife, wanted to come and photograph the Attwater Prairie Chicken at the preserve.

Carol Dinkins [01:00:48] And Byron claims he had never heard of Roger Tory Peterson. And he called me. I was in my office in D.C. because I kept an office with the law firm both in Houston and in D.C. And he said, “Carol, have you ever heard of a some guy named Peterson and he’s interested in birds.”.

Carol Dinkins [01:01:11] And I said, “Byron, is it? Roger Tory Paterson, by any chance?” He said, “Let me check. Yeah, that’s him.” I said, “Yes, I’ve heard of him. I’ve heard a lot about him. I’ve got some of his his field guides, his books.”.

Carol Dinkins [01:01:30] And I suggested that he go to a bookstore and look in the bird books.

Carol Dinkins [01:01:38] He said, “Well, I don’t have time for that because he wants to come tomorrow and photograph the prairie chicken.”.

Carol Dinkins [01:01:47] And I said, “Well, that’s a great thing.”.

Carol Dinkins [01:01:50] And Byron said, “Well, do you want to go with us? We have to leave at 3:30 in the morning to get out before the birds are moving.”.

Carol Dinkins [01:01:58] And I said, “Well, I’m flying back to Houston tonight and so I can go with you in the morning.”.

Carol Dinkins [01:02:04] He said, “Well, I’ll pick you up.” So he did.

Carol Dinkins [01:02:08] And we went out there and I don’t know if it was the Fish and Wildlife van or if Byron had rented a van, but Peterson had these enormous, enormous lenses for his camera. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any as big as those were.

Carol Dinkins [01:02:33] And, of course, it was pitch dark. And we’re out in the in the country, in the wilds. And he got out of the van and he’s carrying one of those huge lenses. And he slipped in the mud and fell, just all he was concerned about was that lens.

Carol Dinkins [01:02:56] And Byron’s in the back seat of the van. He was white as the van was. It was a white van. I thought he was going to have a heart attack.

Carol Dinkins [01:03:05] He grabbed the back of his seat. He said, “Oh, no. Oh, no. He’s not going to die, is he?” He’s out there in the mud.

Carol Dinkins [01:03:15] And somebody helped him up, took care of the lenses, and he was oblivious, went on, set up his camera equipment, took these great photos. And I’ve got one that I’ll try to find and show you before you leave.

Carol Dinkins [01:03:32] But we then went and had breakfast at one of the local places there in Texas City. And I’m sitting next to Peterson and I’m on this side of him and he’s looking down, “Where’d all that mud come from?” I said, “I think he brushed up against the van.” He didn’t even remember that he’d fallen in the mud. All he cared about were the birds.

Lee Smith [01:04:01] Don’t mention it. It didn’t happen.

Lee Smith [01:04:08] So what, what other projects? What other TNC projects have a special interest to you?

Carol Dinkins [01:04:24] It’s kind of like the state parks. I like all of them.

Carol Dinkins [01:04:28] Because I’ve been down to Mad Island several times. I went down there pretty soon after that preserve came into the system and watched Jim Bergen with his farm equipment taking out the levees that had held the water for the rice fields and moving the roads around so they were in better places. And then I’ve gone back down there several times to see the property in its restored state.

Carol Dinkins [01:05:01] And as I said, I’ve been to Clymer Meadow and I’ve loved going to the tallgrass prairie. And the Davis Mountains, I’ve been to a number of times and I just thought that was such a spectacular place. But it’s also that canyon and the way the Conservancy has worked out there and incrementally increased so very much the amount of land that is in protected status now. And that was very difficult because the people in that part of the country are so skeptical of conservationists and environmentalists and government people. And so, watching the Conservancy build a constituency in a place that was really hostile to it is a remarkable, remarkable thing to see done. And that has taken a long time. But it’s been an incredible, an incredible result for the Conservancy and for conservation.

Carol Dinkins [01:06:21] And then to work in in a place, you know, in the Hill Country and to see what the Shield Ranch has done to protect the the aquifer there and to know how critical that is to the water supply is a wonderful thing to be able to to experience.

Carol Dinkins [01:06:51] It’s, it’s hard to say what is what is the most exciting to see. But, you know, to hear the, I went out in the Valley when I became board chair here in Texas. And I got to be board chair for three years because when Dick Thornton asked if I would take the chairmanship, I said, “Yes, but I’m very busy in my law practice. And so it is a one-year term, right?”.

Carol Dinkins [01:07:24] And he said, “Yes. And Bob Thornton would be the person to succeed you.” Well, about halfway through my first year as chair, Bob Thornton told me that he wasn’t going to be able to succeed me because he was going to be too busy at the bank. I can’t remember what it was, and we hadn’t really gotten anybody else in a position to be successor.

Carol Dinkins [01:07:52] And so I said, “Well, okay, I’ll stay on another year.” And John Norris was going to be groomed to be the chair. And then John called me and said, “We’re going to do an IPO of Lennox and I can’t be board chair.” And so I ended up as board chair for three years, not one year. But it was such fun.

Carol Dinkins [01:08:18] And my first year, as I was about to say, my younger daughter and I went down to South Texas and the staff down there drove us all around and showed us the very rare cactus that are being protected down there. And without looking for them, we saw over 100 different species of birds in just a day and a half because it’s such a rich environment there.

Carol Dinkins [01:08:50] And we talked about what had to be done so that the big cats could continue to go back and forth across the border and what was needed to protect them from the traffic on the highway and that sort of thing.

Carol Dinkins [01:09:05] And being out on the ground in the field with the staff down there and seeing their seed program and they were restoring the the South Texas brush lands. I said, “Don’t tell my father that you’re planting mesquite trees because he’s trying to get rid of them.”

Lee Smith [01:09:34] So why is it important for the Nature Conservancy to collaborate with a variety of partners? Especially in Texas.

Carol Dinkins [01:09:44] Because the Conservancy can’t do everything. There’s too much to be done.

Carol Dinkins [01:09:50] And the different organizations, governmental and non-governmental, they usually have a different focus, one from the other. And the collaboration makes a whole system of functioning conservationists who do different things and do things in different ways.

Carol Dinkins [01:10:14] And some of them do a lot of education, for example, of school children. And that’s not a strength of the Conservancy.

Carol Dinkins [01:10:22] And some of them manage as a land trust. There are a number of land trusts in Texas. They manage just one property, not a whole statewide system of preserves of different kinds.

Carol Dinkins [01:10:46] And the research that the Conservancy is able to to do and to host and to sponsor on the properties like at Sandylands. That kind of research couldn’t be done if we didn’t have an organization like the Conservancy who owns the land and owns the land for decades because it makes it possible for those Rice professors, from Rice University, to go out year after year to exactly the same place and be able to study that ecosystem over a very long period of time. And you likely couldn’t do that on private property that was owned by a landowner. You couldn’t be comfortable that someone wouldn’t inherit that land and then sell it, maybe even to pay taxes.

Carol Dinkins [01:11:40] And so what the Conservancy does is a very important type of work for so many reasons in conservation. And it’s, I think, really unique.

Carol Dinkins [01:11:53] And because it’s working globally, and because it’s working all over the Northern hemisphere, it’s got perspectives and it’s got capacity and capabilities that other organizations lack. They simply don’t have the resources the Conservancy has.

Lee Smith [01:12:13] And now, since it’s been around a while and kind of been scrutinized and has these various projects in the past, the level of credibility of the Nature Conservancy has risen. Would you, would that be fair to say?

Carol Dinkins [01:12:36] I think so. I think so. Definitely in the conservation community and in so many governmental entities.

Carol Dinkins [01:12:45] And for example, Fish and Wildlife was so pleased that the Conservancy was going to acquire the Texas City Preserve, and they found money in their budget to help support the Conservancy’s activities there in the early years. And if the organization didn’t have great credibility, that would not have happened. And the Conservancy would not have been able to work with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to get the Deepwater Horizon money to use to acquire and manage the Powderhorn property. And so that credibility is critical for a lot of reasons.

Lee Smith [01:13:39] Well, also on the the private landowner, you know, the folks who were all putting up signs in Fort Davis.

Carol Dinkins [01:13:47] Yes.

Lee Smith [01:13:47] Those signs are down.

Carol Dinkins [01:13:49] Yes. Yes, I remember. It was when I was board chair for the Texas chapter, I was at meetings in Canada. And Robert Potts tracked me down and said, “We have an opportunity to acquire the property that the Republic of Texas, where they had their their stronghold.” And I can’t even remember the gory details. “But it’s it’s it’s being posted for sale and we can buy it. And the people out there want us to buy it and it will give us some further good access to our preserve.” And Robert just had great reasons why we should we should try to acquire that little tiny piece of property. And I was a little nervous about it because it was so infamous, but it all went well. Robert managed it great and with great aplomb.

Lee Smith [01:14:50] So as the Nature Conservancy closes in on its million acre in Texas, how, what does that impact on Texas?

Carol Dinkins [01:15:04] Texas has so little public land. We we have really one national park, Big Bend, and then some of the land in East Texas and the Big Thicket. And state-owned land is just really the state parks. And it’s only, the state-owned land in Texas is a very small percentage of the total acreage. And it includes the prisons, the schools, the highways. And so it’s very misleading even to say that we have any percentage because it’s it’s really such a small amount that’s available for public use and for conservation purposes.

Carol Dinkins [01:15:50] And so, having an organization like the Conservancy that can really supplement what can’t really be done by the state. It would be too costly for the state, and the state has too many demands on its funding. And so what the Conservancy does is way different than what the state is able to do itself.

Carol Dinkins [01:16:18] But then you add to that the research that the Conservancy is doing, the management, the stewardship of the lands that the Conservancy is doing. That’s something that’s not replicated in very many ways throughout the state and such as the brush land in South Texas, the grasslands in west Texas, the prairies on the coast and the oyster reef restoration. All of those are things that the Conservancy has, I think, a very, a very critical and almost unique role to play in conservation in Texas.

Lee Smith [01:17:20] Do you have any advice for young people coming into the field of conservation?

Carol Dinkins [01:17:28] Well, first of all, I want them to know they’re very welcome. And but I would like to see not just the professionals, but all young people to be committed to conservation and especially in Texas, because we have so much that is so valuable to the environment and to our health and our well-being and our enjoyment of the natural world.

Carol Dinkins [01:17:55] And for the young professionals, I would say to them, just, you know, look for ways that that we need people to make a difference in the natural environment and and find ways that you can really bring us forward from where we are now.

Carol Dinkins [01:18:18] But it’s always so exciting to talk to the young people who’ve just joined the Conservancy and find out where they came from and what they’re interested in and what they hope to accomplish. They’ve already got a lot of great ideas and they’re going to be very effective.

Lee Smith [01:18:35] So what is your outlook about the future of conservation?

Lee Smith [01:18:42] I think the future is strong. And I think it’s strong because there are, I think, a lot of, a lot of activities and a lot of discussions that happen in elementary school and high school now, and that never occurred when I was growing up that really are speaking to young people about the need to be attentive to protecting their environment. I see it with my grandchildren and of course, I’m probably very sensitive to it because of my interest. And they don’t have any choice any way. But they they really do care a lot about the environment and they get very distressed if they see somebody littering, for example, or if they see people that they think are not being careful with resources like fish. And they, I think, get a lot of that starting in school now, that again, didn’t used to happen.

Carol Dinkins [01:19:55] But because of that and because I think there’s just so much more attention and so many ways to conservation as part of environmental matters that the young people will be attentive to it in a way that that they certainly weren’t when I was growing up, which is why all of the environmental laws got passed about the time I got out of law school because the environment was a mess, was in bad shape. You recall hearing about the Cuyahoga River catching on fire and it was still a mess when I went to the Justice Department. We had a lot to clean up. And it’s not all clean now. There’s still plenty to do.

Lee Smith [01:20:43] So the work is still there?

Carol Dinkins [01:20:45] Indeed, yes.

Lee Smith [01:20:47] Jeff, do you have any.

Jeff Weigel [01:20:51] I have a question. What is your, what are you going to do? Are you going to continue to work. Or what’s what is your role now?

Carol Dinkins [01:20:59] Well, I’m a trustee emeritus on the Texas chapter board, and I very much enjoy the board meetings and I especially enjoying getting out to the preserves, getting out in the grasslands like we did in West Texas. And if I can be of any help by being a trustee emeritus, I will continue to do it. But I don’t want to take up a place that could be good for somebody else to occupy.

Lee Smith [01:21:31] Why was there a need for the Texas history, the Texas Nature Conservancy History Project?

Carol Dinkins [01:21:37] We had a board meeting by Zoom last year and when we were having that board discussion, and I can’t remember the specifics of it, but it occurred to me that the members of the board now don’t know the history behind so many of our preserves because they weren’t around when those reserves came into the into the conservancy. And it may have been one of the discussions involved, the Texas City Prairie Preserve. And there’s so much history with that one in particular and good history and bad history and so much history with the Davis Mountains and so many places.

Carol Dinkins [01:22:28] And because I’ve been on the board now for 35 years, I still know a lot of the history. Of course, when you’re living it, it’s not history and you don’t think of it. But when you’ve been doing it for 35 years and you realize that the people that you’re listening to don’t know that history, it occurred to me that we needed to get that history recorded so that in another 35 years people won’t have lost it. They’ll understand how hard it was to do so many of the things that the Conservancy has done with such great results here in Texas.

Carol Dinkins [01:23:08] And so I think I sent an email to Jack Long. He was the chair then and to Suzanne [Scott], who had just recently come on board as the state director and suggested that we try to put together a project that would would record the history of of some of our preserves. And I named a few of them that I thought really warranted being memorialized.

Carol Dinkins [01:23:42] And Jack said he thought that was a good idea and that he would be glad to contribute toward that project. And so Suzanne and Jeff worked on a description of what it would involve. It took a long time to develop the description of the project, and I offered to help raise money to bring the project into being and then to completion.

Carol Dinkins [01:24:16] And so after we finally had a description that everybody was comfortable with, then at the end of last year, I sent fundraising requests, solicitations, starting with the emeritus trustees and then a few others that Renee and Jeff suggested.

Carol Dinkins [01:24:41] And the project came in much more costly than what I had envisioned. My thinking apparently was too modest. But it didn’t matter because we pretty quickly were able to raise all the money that we needed. And I think that the people that you all have interviewed, and have still to interview, have just been incredible people for you to sit down and talk about history with because they have been so instrumental in bringing the Conservancy to where it is and getting those preserves into the portfolio and then getting them restored where they needed to be restored and then managing them and having the science that is done on those properties is just so important. And you’ve got a great, great group of people that you’ve interviewed.