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

Interviewee: Junie Marie Plummer
Date: June 14, 2022
Site: San Antonio, Texas
Reels: 3745-3750
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: Plummer_JunieMarie_NCItem33_SanAntonioTX_20220614_Reel3745-3750_Audio.mp3

[Bracketed numbers refer to the interview recording’s time code.]

Lee Smith [00:00:16] So where did you grow up?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:00:17] I grew up in Kerrville, Texas, and went off, came up to Austin and never left Austin. But Kerrville’s home where I was born and raised. I lived on Tivy Mountain. My parents had the funeral homes in the Hill Country – Kerrville, Junction, Bandera, Rock Springs. So we were Hill Country.

Lee Smith [00:00:40] Take me from Kerrville to, you came to the University of Texas. And what did you major in, all that kind of stuff?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:00:47] My daddy said I could go to school anywhere I wanted, but if I wanted him to pay for it, I was going to Austin. And then he said, he gave me an Orange Dotson’s station wagon. I said, “Daddy, I don’t want to drive an orange Datsun station wagon.” He said, “If you want me to pay for it, that’s what you’re driving.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:01:04] So I applied to one school. I came to school in an orange Datsun and lived in Jester and got a Bachelor of Arts and was in Austin. I guess that was about 1978.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:01:18] And then I worked for a title company for many years, loved the title business, and that’s really what you’ll hear later. It served me well in my conservation career and especially working with The Nature Conservancy.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:01:29] And so I was working along and we went through a real estate bust. And I came in one day and they said, you know, “Wednesday’s your last day.” I actually even asked, “Can you afford me?” “No, Wednesday’s your last day.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:01:43] So I had closed at the title company for the City of Austin, and I kind of kept after them. And about that time, about 200 people applied for every job. And there was one particular gentleman, he said I reminded him of his sister. He hired me and I was so thrilled and I thought I was going to buy right-of-way for the airport that was going at that time to Manor, which now it’s at Bergstrom.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:02:07] So I came to work on a Monday and they said, “We’re going to have you buy park land. The lady that buys parks got promoted on Friday. So we’re just we’ll just have you buy park land.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:02:17] And I want you to know, I was hungry and I was starving. And I would have done just about anything. And I kept thinking, “Do I have to carry Amdro? Do I have to memorize where the picnic tables are?”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:02:27] And so I but I was hungry. I was willing to do it. So that was the very beginning of my conservation career. I had no intentions. I just sort of landed in the right place at the right time.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:02:38] I worked over 30 years for the City of Austin and had the same phone number my whole career. I never left land acquisition. I loved it. I worked with fabulous people and it just turned out to be such a the right place at the right time for me. And conservation, too.

Lee Smith [00:02:57] So cast your mind back. Was there any, give me your, what’s your earliest experience, or memory of making a connection with the natural world?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:03:12] My earliest memory was in Kerrville. Every hunting season we would, someone would have a place, someone have a hunting, a ranch or something. My family, as I mentioned, was in the funeral business. So we always had a big tent. And we just, for the whole hunting season, everybody came and went from a hunting camp.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:03:30] And my daddy absolutely loved being outside. He loved a good fire. Everybody had to have their own sleeping bags. It was just really such an experience that he and I talked about many times later that we didn’t really realize at the time.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:03:48] But it wasn’t conservation, as in conservation, that we sort of took things for granted. We always had clear creeks, we always had a lot of clean air. We always had quiet and dark skies.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:04:01] And so it wasn’t really, till I came to work for the City that I began to understand what that really meant from an impact to my life and an impact to my future.

Lee Smith [00:04:13] When I think about that area as a kid – fireflies. Did you have a lot of fireflies?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:04:20] We had a lot of fireflies, and I don’t remember as many mosquitoes as we have now either.

Lee Smith [00:04:27] So you mentioned your dad. Was he the family member or was there someone else that was kind of a mentor for you in terms of the natural world?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:04:39] You know, it was my my father that first made the impression on me. But once I came to the city and I was acquiring park land and started working with the Nature Conservancy on endangered species and then water quality and all the parkland, I really began to appreciate from all the scientists what it really meant and what, how it was harder to get dirty water clean or to keep clean water clean and really understand quantities of water.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:05:07] And really with the Nature Conservancy, there were so many people that we worked with on endangered species. I couldn’t have told you what a golden-cheeked warbler was, or a black-capped vireo or a blind salamander before those times. But I really began to understand and appreciate the conservation.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:05:25] When we were working on endangered species at the time, there were so many death threats and people who were angry over endangered species. And then we started working on water quality and I kept going, “Oh, in Texas, they understand good water, no water and bad water.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:05:41] You know, water wasn’t hard to explain. And the water quality program had just a totally different kind of temperament to it because there was so much about the Balcones Canyonlands that was new. We were one of the first Habitat Conservation Plans. And so it was really that beginning of understanding all the testimony and the science that I began to really appreciate what I grew up with.

Lee Smith [00:06:05] Getting that job acquiring park land was your first introduction to conservation work?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:06:11] It was. I just knew not to throw your trash out the window. That was the only thing conservation that I really knew.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:06:17] And upon my completion, I think I was just a little over 60,000 acres protected, whether it was Balcones Canyonlands, water quality, parkland. I worked on some bigger projects like Water Treatment Plant Number 4. And I spent and that was about 60,000 acres, and I spent just a little over half a billion in cash. And I used to always kind of tease – cash made you prettier. And we did a really good job on some of our acquisitions.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:06:44] But we also had a lot of support from our elected officials during those days, those early days of those projects.

Lee Smith [00:06:51] So tell me about Shadow the goat.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:06:56] So there was a gentleman named Frank Boatwright on Spicewood Springs Road, really an old cedar chopper, truly a cedar chopper. And he, my name always kind of tends to come up. But he didn’t like my name, Junie. But he didn’t have teeth. And he kept saying, “Juno.” And I thought he was saying, “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:07:20] But later I came to understand and I asked him, “Frank, are you saying Juno?” And he goes, “Yeah, I like Juno County down in Del Rio. I don’t like that name of yours.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:07:29] So I’m first this is like the second person I’ve ever called on. I’m standing in a driveway out in the beautiful Hill Country, Bull Creek, and I have a little pink dress on, little flat shoes. And I’m talking to him and I have a little folder with the maps, and, you know, I’m all prepared.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:07:50] And this big goat comes around. And it had horns and it kept going to my backside. And I was like, “Oh”. And I kind of hit him with the papers. And then I tried to kind of hold his horns. And then I decided, “Okay, if that goat wants me to negotiate with him right there.” And I just negotiated the whole time with this goat nudging me.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:08:15] And it later took seven years of negotiations with Frank to acquire the nine acres on Bull Creek that we wanted. But later, when I got to know him, I said, “Frank, that was mean.” And he said he had to lay down in the driveway when I left over that city slicker calling on him.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:08:32] And Shadow the goat. And that’s why he was always called Shadow. He was your shadow.

Lee Smith [00:08:40] Tell me about your participation in the exorcism of Austin.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:08:48] Well, that’s another good story. There’s this gentleman, and a broker set up this big tour. Giant Suburban, everything, you know, all the equipment, everything. And we’re riding around, and there’s something like Led Zeppelin’s playing, and this is an old man that’s not interested in this music. And I’m thinking, “How did these two guys come together?” You know.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:09:15] We stop because he wants to show me a particular spot. And I said, “Okay.” And he told the broker, “You stay in the car.” And so we walk and he’s going to show me this beautiful ledge overlooking Bear Creek. And we’re just talking, talking and and we’re kind of getting closer and closer to the edge. And I’m kind of thinking, “Okay, this is far enough.” And we’re standing there and he just immediately grabs my hand and he said, “Now you bow your head. We’re going to pray and we’re going to get rid of the devil in the city.” And I was like, “Yes, sir.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:09:53] And I bowed my head and I let him pray. He prayed on and on about the devil and the devil in the city. And and I’m just holding this little man’s hand, and he’s finished. We let go of our hands. We walk back to the Suburban. Next day, we close the deal. So we got rid of the devil, over Bear Creek.

Lee Smith [00:10:14] Well, they say the devil’s in the details.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:10:16] Yes.

Lee Smith [00:10:19] What was your longest negotiation? Was there one that went for years?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:10:26] You know, there was one that was 17 years, for nine acres, again, on Bull Creek where, again, Frank Boatwright would say, “If you had a bad day, you just got in the crack in your underwear and all would be better.” And it took a long time for that particular acquisition to occur. And it really kind of helped when we were doing so much in the Bull Creek area for the Balcones Canyonlands, James King and I, and there’s a lot of activity in that really did kind of help, but it ultimately was for trail connection.

Lee Smith [00:10:58] How did the first deal or first meeting you had with James King go?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:11:02] I’m trying to think because there were so many with James. But I looked at Jeff when I said that.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:11:11] You know, James was… I was so new. And James was, you know, on target. He had been able to have, to secure a contract with the FDIC and the RTC, and we had this ginormous opportunity and we ended up working with the RTC and FDIC for a long time. I think it was about two years that James had it under contract and we closed on January 8th, 1993, on 5536 acres at once.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:11:47] And James and I, it had its moments from surveying to title work. But the funniest experience with James and the Nature Conservancy was we had to close these tracts. We had a deadline. And there was a big event with Congressman Jake Pickle and Mayor Todd, and we were going to be at Jester, the top of Jester, and it was just this fabulous ceremony and busses of people. And it’s midnight the night before and we’re not closed. And we tried to come back at six in the morning and we still weren’t closed.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:12:23] And James and I went to the ceremony and we are so green. We’re standing in the back. And I was looking at James and we had attorneys and conference rooms and everything all booked. And they are holding up a deed. It’s a fake deed. We had not signed the deed. We’re not closed.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:12:40] And James and I kept looking at each other, and I just kept thinking, “What happens? What?”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:12:46] So we go back to the title company. Everybody else did all the bird stuff, happy clappy, eating cake, da da da. James and all of us just immediately went back to the title company. We closed, we ate lunch, and I don’t think we talked for about nine months. It was kind of dramatic.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:13:10] So, so how did the City partner with the Nature Conservancy? What was that? What was that? And it probably wasn’t typical on each deal or whatever, but. But generally how did that work?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:13:28] It was the late ’80s, and the Nature Conservancy, David Braun was state director and James King approached the City and we had species of concern. The birds hadn’t been listed at that point in time – the golden-cheeked warbler and the black-capped vireo.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:13:42] And we had all these opportunities from the bust. That was this big contract that they were able to secure, put the option money, but we had to sell it to our elected officials. We had to ultimately convince our elected officials to have a bond election and move the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve forward with land acquisition.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:14:03] And so that was the first of the relationships that we had. And there was a wonderful gentleman in real estate where I worked, Joe Morehan, and we’d pull out, we didn’t have mapping or GIS or pretty pictures.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:14:17] We had the old Travis County appraisal district maps and we take Marks-A-Lots and we would color the tract and then we’d have to assemble them all. And, you know, it was just such a different presentation than presentations are made today. No PowerPoints at that time or anything.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:14:34] And it was really James and and David and many at the Nature Conservancy that helped our elected officials realize this was important and that this was an opportunity that couldn’t be passed.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:14:45] And our bonds passed in ’92. S.O.S. was happening at the same time – Save our Springs Alliance. All of those different actions were occurring. And our bonds passed in ’92. Travis County’s failed in ’94.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:15:00] So it did leave the city in a much better place to begin with our conservation, with the endangered species approaching that Habitat Conservation Plan.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:15:10] And that was really from the help from the Nature Conservancy, the scientists, everybody that brought everything from James and the land and the deal to the science and what it meant in the different macro sites. And we were able to secure almost a large tract in every one of the five macro sites. And we had a goal of 30,428 acres and the city was already at half of that goal, just from that, with our park land and then those acquisitions.

Lee Smith [00:15:36] Tell me about the macro sites. What what were these and how were they chosen or identified?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:15:45] The Nature Conservancy really worked with US Fish and Wildlife Service. And so it was a it was a scientific approach to the protection of the lands for the particular species. And so we had different macro sites that you had to accomplish so many acres to be able to protect that species. And again, they were species of concern and then they became listed.

Lee Smith [00:16:11] Well and then you have the the kind of flip side where you’re talking about is that the the watershed protection that kind of goes along with that. You know, if you’re protecting a large tract that also has water implications.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:16:30] Well, yeah, at the time it was really just focusing on the habitat. But later, that was 1992, and Kirk Watson became mayor and S.O.S. had passed. And there was a lot of anxiety over impervious cover, the limits of impervious cover, transitional zones, all of our water quality.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:16:51] And Kirk Watson was the first to kind of say, “City of Austin’s going to put our money where our mouth is and we’re going to buy some of these lands and we’re going to put it up to the voters.” And that was May 2nd of 1998, and that was the first of several of the bond packages for water quality.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:17:06] But it was stepping up from just a regulation standpoint because there had been so much regulation over the Habitat Conservation Plan and then S.O.S. So it was a way for the City to also financially participate and protect the tracts for water quality and quantity, which also had other benefits too.

Lee Smith [00:17:28] So specifically, how did you help participate in the Barton Creek Habitat Preserve?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:17:37] Well, James King was in a bind. And he was able to secure a contract from a developer who needed mitigation. So it was it was very clever. We had been working on the Barton Creek Wilderness Park, which is a separate thousand acres downstream. This was a tract that was owned by Barnes and Connally and was in foreclosure, and it was 4000 acres and we didn’t have the financial resources for it.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:18:07] But the Nature Conservancy was able to secure someone who needed mitigation. And then James was out of money. He needed money for a survey. He needed money.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:18:17] And so the City came in and we were partners. We did a limited use easement on that tract. Recently, we just purchased a conservation easement on that tract. We didn’t know at the time to extinguish impervious cover, so it was a little bit of a lesson learned later.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:18:32] But we always felt, I am going to say, “we”, collectively, the City, that the Nature Conservancy was a true partner, that they brought us transactions that had life and possibility, and we each could team together and pool our resources, always furthering our public/private dollars. And that’s what the Barton Creek Preserve was about.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:18:53] On the Barton Creek Preserve, one thing that’s so critical is the Nature Conservancy took title to that land, and in taking title to that land, they also agreed to manage it. There was a payout from the developer over a certain number of years, but really it was ownership and management and stepping up to the plate even where the taxes were concerned. They elected to pay property taxes, the Nature Conservancy did here, and it was the first of that example that we’d had. Not only was it mitigation, but then they were able to secure title to it and also manage it appropriately without any financial resources from the city after the closing.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:19:34] So who did you work with in the mechanics of those deals?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:19:40] You know, there’s been a wonderful wide variety. I looked at a book that had everyone’s signature, but it went back to Jim Freeze and Jim Desmond and James King and David Braun and Cathy Del Castillo. I mean, there was always a wide variety of staff that the City of Austin was working with. But lately it’s been Jeff Francell. And during the Balcones Canyonlands days, it was James King.

Lee Smith [00:20:10] What was Proposition 2 back in ’98 and what did that money go for?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:20:15] Proposition 2 was the water quality. So that was water quality, water quantity in the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer. And it was recharge and contributing zone. And it was to protect Barton Springs.

Lee Smith [00:20:33] And how many more of those kind of propositions have have happened?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:20:38] You know, I knew you were going to ask me that. I think we’ve had four. We haven’t had one since 2018, and we’re almost out of funds for our open space program now. The market has certainly changed from when we first started on Prop 2. It was about 4000 an acre. And some of these tracts, we’re looking at 30,000 and above now. So our progress that we really made in the beginning was significant.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:21:03] And another important part of Prop 2 was that Kirk Watson really felt like we should option these tracts in advance. And a lady in the science realm, Nancy McClintock, that just really did teach me everything. We went and we met with the City Manager, Jesus Garza, and with Kirk Watson, and they gave us money to option tracts in advance. They so believed in this project that they gave us money in advance. So when the voters approved these bonds, May 2nd of ’98, we already had contracts in place to close.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:21:36] And so we were lean, mean and just really prepared. And the Nature Conservancy was a partner on that project too.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:21:45] But at that time, Jesus Garza, the city manager, he would have us posted every Thursday on executive session in case a deal came up.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:21:53] We stayed aggressive. We really knew our market. We had a big team that we called the open space team – James and Jeff and Junie and Jerry and another John and and they were annexing Circle C and someone called us “Circle J” and I was like, “Oooh, no, no, no, not, not don’t relate us to Circle C.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:22:12] But we did call ourselves the “J Team” and we really stayed aggressive for that first year. We closed, it was 65 million, and we closed almost 90% of that 65,000,000 in one year.

Lee Smith [00:22:28] So how critical is timing? I mean, especially with the growth that’s going on. How critical is timing to preserving critical habitat?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:22:43] You know, timing is everything. And at one time, even just joking with Kirk Watson, like I said previously, “Cash makes you prettier.” We had cash. We didn’t have to wait for those bonds to be sold. The city manager elected to sell all 65 million at once versus over a six-year period of time.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:23:00] We were aggressive. We stayed ahead of the market. We were just coming out of a bust. I mean, there was a, you know, the market wasn’t bad. There was a little bit, you know, growing. But we weren’t quite in the market we’re in today. The growth hadn’t quite occurred.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:23:18] And Circle C, that development agreement with Gary Bradley occurred in 2000. So if you kind of put the bonds to ’98, we were just a little bit ahead of some of those.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:23:28] We also took three tracts of land when we were getting low on money and sold them that we had bought them in fee and we sold them with conservation easements to further our dollars. So we stayed aggressive at all times.

Lee Smith [00:23:41] How important are conservation easements to protecting land?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:23:47] I remember when we first started. I wish now that I had known what a tool a conservation easement was. We didn’t know during the Balcones Canyonlands times.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:23:56] But you know, I remember Kirk Watson asking, “How many do you think you can do of these things?” You know. “Oooh, I was just hoping two or three.” Like, you know, I didn’t have a very big vision. I didn’t know.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:24:08] And today, the city has over 19 conservation easements, and it is the majority of the land we hold for the water quality program. And I really began to appreciate the love of the land, families that didn’t have other alternatives, what these conservation easements meant to their children and their children’s children, and really understanding those families and what their needs were meant all the difference to that program.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:24:37] And they manage the land. They pay the taxes on the land. And we just come out once a year for our inspections. But these people call. They’ve become like family. We hear from them. We’re always delighted to to hear and see how they’re doing. And some have passed away and some have sold again. And it continues to be very, very positive.

Lee Smith [00:25:03] So tell me about some of your favorite or most significant deals.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:25:10] Well, I always start on this question, I always start with Mary Searight. Mary Searight was in her 80s. She didn’t like her earrings to match. She always carried a gun. And I had been working for the city for about 30 days. And the gentleman that I report to said, “Junie, you have to call on someone.” And I had never called on anyone. I had never done any of this. And I was like, “Sure, Stuart, I’ll call.” He goes, “I’d like you to call Mary Searight.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:25:40] And so I do. And I show up. And Mary has, you know, blue jeans and she always liked a feather in her hat. And we rode around in her Studebaker. And the whole day, I felt so stupid with what I had on. I had a silk dress with a Mr. T Starter Kit. I was dressed up like you were going to church.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:26:04] And Mary was, Mary was a rancher. And so I was thinking the whole time, “Why did I wear that? Or what did I have?” You know? And it was lesson learned. And I’ll probably never be invited back, but at least I know now. And we had something in common with Audubon and everything.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:26:21] And so after she drove me around, she probably weighed maybe 100 pounds, a little tiny thing in this old Studebaker. And we’d stop and she says, “Well, do you like it?” And I said, “Well, yes, ma’am.” And she said, “But do you like it?” So I said, “Well, ma’am, I think we only have enough money for half, but maybe we can do another bond.” And I knew we didn’t have near enough. I knew some developers had been calling on her and I knew. Even though I was green, I wasn’t that green.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:26:53] And she later in the conversation, “Don’t you like it?” And I said, “Yes, ma’am.” And we cut our deal that day, the very day I met her.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:27:02] So I go back to the Parks Department and I mean, well, let me just say, she and I went back to the gate. We we termed out everything. I’ll pay you a million and a half. You gift this. We did everything.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:27:14] And she stopped and paused and said, “I just have one request, Junie” And I said, “Okay.” And I had no idea what that would be.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:27:22] And she says, “Can I touch you?” She was fascinated with the silk and the pearls and the gold chains, and she just wanted to see what all that felt like.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:27:33] And those gnarly farmer hands just just touched my sleeve. And it was just such an endearing moment between Mary and I.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:27:40] And so I always go back to that as my favorite.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:27:44] I always say Frank Boatwright and Shadow the goat had to come in there as a second.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:27:48] But as much as all the large transactions, the Nature Conservancy, the big acreage is it always tended to be the small, the tract that filled in the gap, the one that, the one that if it got away, changed the whole park system, the whole, you know, water quality.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:28:07] I negotiated on one with a gentleman. James and I went to Houston and met with this family, a very wealthy oil and gas family, and there was seven acres and it didn’t have access and it was a gap. And I stayed after that for years and was able to close it even after I retired, I was able to finally close that one. So when we talk about the big ones that made big numbers and big acquisitions, I think it was always the small ones that meant the most.

Lee Smith [00:28:35] How important is it to make a connection with the landowners? Because what I’ve been hearing from you or all these different ways you’ve made connections with these people.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:28:50] Yes.

Lee Smith [00:28:50] Some of them are almost, like Mary, was begging for a connection.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:28:56] Well, you know, I made a list just to kind of help myself remember some of the ones. But even going back to the Nature Conservancy on one, we got a call from the city manager at seven in the morning and we were told to have a contract for no less than a thousand acres that evening. And Jeff Francell and all of us took off and called the people we knew, reached out to the people we knew.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:29:20] But Jeff got in touch with a landowner. His wife was going into labor with her fourth baby. He decided to take the cash. Jeff showed up at executive session and we had a contract.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:29:31] So some of it was the connections with the people, but it also sometimes just was darn good timing. We just called on someone when it was the right time and the right place.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:29:41] But there was one right at Mo Pac and 360. It was Vernon Friesenhan’s 60 acres. It had exemptions, what was called 1704, right over Barton Creek. And and I think we pulled together four or five funding sources and it was the most money we could ever have imagined. It was 6.9 million for 60 acres.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:30:05] I promise you, nobody drives by Mo Pac and 360 and thinks how much that land costs. They just think that it’s preserved and that it’s part of the protection for birds and Barton Creek.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:30:21] There was one. There was Judge Reevely, and he was a federal judge. And I show up and I accidentally had a little pocket knife in my purse and they take that at the security thing. So there’s a whole kerfuffle.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:30:35] He was a very tall man, probably about six seven, six eight. And I’m in a federal judge’s office and he walks in and he starts talking about, “I swim at Barton Creek every day.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:30:46] And we were able to close on Judge Reevely’s land and he would sign, “Fastidiously yours, Judge Reevely,” on his communications.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:30:54] So again, we just, it was the last person that I expected, but it was the right time.

Lee Smith [00:31:03] But you were still able to make these personal connections, it sounds like.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:31:07] There always were. There was. You know, there there was.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:31:11] John and Janie Orr had a place overlooking Onion Creek. And John was an attorney, bond counselor. And I don’t think he was too concerned about conservation, but mama was.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:31:23] So we were able to connect with Janie Orr who still does a lot of conservation work today.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:31:32] Anne Ashmun and Scott Nestor. You know, those are both big conservation easement partners that we have. They were, we were, had never. I got an email from Mayor Gus Garcia, that said, “Hey, there’s this program called NRCS.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:31:46] And I said real politely, “Sure, I’d be glad to check it out. Sure.” Well, 14 million dollars later, the city has been a benefit of the NRCS.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:31:53] And Anne and Scott Nestor were part of that. And Anne was so funny. It was learning a grant and a process and federal money and don’t sign this before you sign that. And and when I call Anne every day, she’d say, “What fresh hell today, what fresh hell today?”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:32:13] And so it was coming to know many of the people and what they wanted and what would work for them. And there were a lot of relationships. And I even said when I retired that all the things that had been done most important were some of the relationships.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:32:28] With an old timer named Rupert Ceder on the East Side, whose family came here from Sweden.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:32:35] So just a lot of contact and and living in the community, you know, always kind of living in and working with different families.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:32:46] There were a few fish that got away, but we tried not to let too many.

Lee Smith [00:32:50] Okay. You’re working for a title company. You get fired during and then you just kind of grasp for almost any job you can get. And then you never left. It sounds like you were very lucky and that this spoke to you in a certain way. I mean, as soon as the market returned, you didn’t go back to, you know, commercial real estate. Why did you stay? What was what was it about this that kind of fueled your soul?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:33:28] I’m a public servant through and through is what I came to realize really later is that I just really loved that public service part. I loved working. I worked for nine different mayors. I worked with many different city managers. I understood how the city worked.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:33:45] That was part of my value to the Nature Conservancy. They may secure the contract and I may help them negotiate. But I knew how to get through the system and what that system consisted of.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:33:58] I always liked that several elected officials really counted the acquisitions that I was a part of as part of their legacy. So it continued not just for the community, but for elected officials to be part of their legacy. I always really felt that the land was protected as part of my job.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:34:17] I had to go through what they called Chapter 26 of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Code, where if you need an easement across park land, you have to stand up and say there’s no other feasible and prudent alternative to the taking of the parkland. So I knew what the loss of our parkland was about, just from little takes, but also just that sense of permanent protection. And it meant a lot.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:34:44] I didn’t always walk every trail, and I used to joke that I delivered the baby. I didn’t raise it. I didn’t put in any of the infrastructure. I didn’t plan where the trails were. I didn’t care where the picnic tables were, because by the time I’d closed something, I was moving on to the next. I didn’t have time to even think about it.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:35:01] And sometimes, even in retirement, I keep thinking, “I need to go back there, you know, I need to go revisit some of these spots.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:35:08] But it was very important to me to give back to my community. And I loved it. And I never left that desk. Same desk, 30 years. And that’s even when you retire, you get a sign, a street sign. And my last four phone numbers of my phone number for the over 30 years was 70, 85. So I did 7085 Plummer Parkway for my street name.

Lee Smith [00:35:39] What’s the most satisfying aspect of your work? I mean, when you when you’re driving around, as you’ve just been doing, kind of, you can tick off acreages and locations, but as you drive around Austin, I mean, I can’t imagine the feeling of accomplishment you must have doing that.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:36:08] You know, I don’t think I really appreciated the accomplishment until I was getting ready for today. And I went back through all the old sheets and I went through all the old numbers. And I really did think of all the people. And I I didn’t realize we did that much. We were just so busy.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:36:28] And, and but it was the people. I did enjoy many of them so much. And and especially when they’d pass away, like when Frank Boatwright passed away. “Oh, so sad.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:36:41] But when I drive around, I always say, “Don’t get in the car with me if you don’t want me to point. That is this. And that’s when they did this and that was so and so. Even here, I knew T.S. Steiner that used to own this land where this big facility is.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:36:54] And so it’s it is the people. It is. But it always goes back to the land.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:37:00] Did many acquisitions on Walnut Creek. There was the gentleman Rupert Ceder, Rupert Ceder. And he’s a gentleman from Sweden. And he had the old pecan bottoms. And there used to be a sign, “no pecan pucking”. And I just loved that old sign. And but we did a whole lot on Walnut Creek and following Walnut.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:37:25] At one point, I think I was more in love with Walnut Creek than Barton Creek. And then all of a sudden I was more in love with Onion Creek than I was Walnut Creek. So, and then always Bull Creek.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:37:37] You know, and I do remember in one of those Chapter 26 hearings, a council member, it was on the east side, asked me if I knew the name of the creek where the taking was occurring and I didn’t know. And it was Charles Urdy, Councilmember Urdy. And I remember being kind of horrified when he informed me that was Buttermilk Creek.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:37:57] And so I remember I always in those hearings, those public hearings, I knew every creek name, and I just came to love all of them, really. You know, the different ones that… And then you’d always see some degradation and, you know, erosion, things like that. And oh, and so it became part of my blood. It just became part of my blood.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:38:20] But Walnut Creek was beautiful. Some of those acquisitions are just at some point when the trails really do go through there and the public really can see them, they’ll be impressed.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:38:30] And old stories from Rupert about how one spot was called Rattlesnake Hill. And sure enough, I’d ask the park’s people, oh, yeah, that’s a lot of rattlesnakes over there. And I always thought, “Ooh, well, not going there.”

Lee Smith [00:38:45] But tell me about the mountain lion you saw.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:38:48] Well, Anne Ashmun and I were trying to find conservation partners. We needed some money and we needed to figure out how to infuse some additional money for about 500 acres, which is where a gentleman, ultimately, Scott Nester, came in.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:39:04] And I’m telling you, if you would get in the car with me, it just you would have to go look at this. I took so many people in this little old red Honda over hill and over dale and I had this doctor, a premature baby doctor. A doctor that dealt with horrible, tough stuff all the time.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:39:26] And I said, and I’d learned my route. If I came in this gate and crossed the Onion Creek here. And then we did the loop, because it was a five-mile ride from gate to gate. And so they’d get out and they’d really start feeling the wilderness and they’d really begin to appreciate all the sounds and smells.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:39:46] And but I’d also learn we had a lot of black buck antelope, and I always knew they kind of stayed in one little spot. It was just above the creek. It was kind of a flat, grassy area. So I told this gentleman, I said, “Okay, now when we come around the corner, start looking for the black buck antelope”, because a lot of the men like the deer and the wildlife, and that just makes it all a little bit more like the frontier.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:40:11] And so we came around the corner and a mountain lion stood up, looked back at us. And was gone. Just gone. And he kept yelling, “That was an animal! That was an animal!” And I said, “Well, that was a mountain lion.” And we were kind of going through all that.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:40:29] So then I go back, and I tell the city’s land management team (there was a gentleman named Willie Conrad). And Willie had worked for NRCS for 17 years, had a long history of land management.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:40:41] Said, “Willie, we saw a mountain lion.” And he said, “No, Junie, you didn’t see a mountain lion.” I said, “Willie, I’m from the Hill Country. I know what a mountain lion looks like.” He said, “I’ve waited my whole life to see one. I haven’t seen one. No, you didn’t see one.” “Willie, I saw one.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:40:57] So this was in the fall. And then in the spring. And it’s one thing I wished I had saved more than anything. It was an email. And it was written to me like a love letter. “It was walking towards me. It crouched by the agarita. It tail was this. It weighed this. And it was a young tom that had been was crying because the girls had kicked him out.” And Willie Conrad was sitting in his truck and got to witness this. And it was just I mean, it was written like a love letter. And so later I said, “Willie, I guess my stock went up.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:41:33] And that was my one mountain lion sighting.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:41:36] I’m trying to think the very first time I met Bob. But, you know, it was one of those times when you’re invited out to see the ranch and you know that everybody’s got their party dress on, so to speak. Everything looks pretty. Everything’s all been buffed and fluffed.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:41:50] And we go out and his lovely family was there and we walked down to the creek and there’s all these different things.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:41:58] But we really knew that on that transaction it couldn’t be just straight to city. And there was such a heart for the Nature Conservancy with the Ayres family. And some of their goals were children and other things were concerned, that we were able to sit down because everybody was so open-minded and kind of look at, “Okay, this part of the ranch could be under an easement with the city.”

[00:42:21] And those financial resources would mean, you know, make a difference to the rest of their family’s goals. And then also work in with the Nature Conservancy on their camps and all their other things.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:42:34] And so impervious cover really differed between the two. The city was looking for a lower impervious cover. The Nature Conservancy was a little bit more flexible on some of that.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:42:44] And it was a great time and a great transaction. We had Jerry Weberman and some of the old-timers working on the legal documents and we were really able to accomplish two big goals for both the Nature Conservancy and the City, including the family. So it’s still a treasured transaction.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:43:03] Every now and then I’ll call Bob with something, kind of to stay in touch. And he was touched and we were touched. And even when one of our scientists, Nancy McClintock, retired, Bob cooked her whole retirement dinner, had all of us there, put on this wonderful spread for us just in appreciation for what the city brought to the table too.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:43:27] So it continues to be a very strong relationship. And one of our proud moments to really enter into that easement, everyone kind of knew the family, but they didn’t quite know the family. And this was our opportunity to work with them.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:43:41] And it was right in the very beginning of our program. So it really helped with the goals towards conservation that mayor at the time, Kirk Watson, had established. And I think I sort of looked at it sometimes as “Whew, met the goal”, but it also really established a life-long protection of that area that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Lee Smith [00:44:07] So what advice would you have for a young person that is interested in conservation?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:44:17] Of all the questions, I did have, I kind of got stumped on this one. And I kept thinking, for me, what I would always advise, conservation isn’t just about the land and the pretty trees and the pristine. You have to know your title. You have to know how to read a survey. You have to know how to read a title commitment. You have to know if the deed’s correct.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:44:38] And I really would encourage the career of looking at beyond just conservation. But how do you conserve it? What are the funding mechanisms? How do you allocate those funds? What are criteria?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:44:51] And oftentimes when I am meeting with younger folk, they don’t really want to talk about a city’s budget and they don’t want to really talk about how a bond election happens. They just happen. And they don’t. And they’re a lot of work.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:45:04] And I’ve derived a wonderful career, but I also knew how to close it. I also knew the devil in the details. I also knew very much how to read the documents that were appropriate – contracts, what contracts meant.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:45:22] And I really do wish that there was just such an environment where that was easier to learn. But some of it is just the school of hard knocks, and it’s getting out there and working for someone that does those closings and knows how that works. Because just because you say you want this conserved, if you don’t know how to, you don’t get very far.

Lee Smith [00:45:46] It almost sounds like there needs to be like a, you know, conservation real estate because I mean that that that seems to get lost.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:45:57] It does.

Lee Smith [00:45:58] I mean, the real nuts and bolts are what make these things happen.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:46:00] It does. And environmental issues, you know, these old ranches all had landfills and places where they dumped their oil and they didn’t clear environmental clearance.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:46:10] And how do you get them cleaned up? And what what puts them in a condition where you can take them?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:46:15] What if their family members didn’t have a will and you have to clean up and go to probate and do different things?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:46:22] So really knowing your land and your real estate and how to how to really make that conservation happen is a different skill set than maybe the scientists have.

Lee Smith [00:46:35] What about women? How has the role of women changed and evolved in your time there?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:46:45] Well, I made a list and I was thinking about the different women that had meant so much to me because there were different women at different times. But you would think that this field is the majority is men.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:46:58] But the majority that I really worked with, that had an impact to conservation were women like Mary Arnold. Jackie Goodman served on the council and she and Darryl Slusher fought for our conservation in Barton Creek. Bridget Shea.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:47:13] Beverly Griffith did so much for Barton Creek Wilderness Park. She stood up against the mayor and really fought for that thousand acres. We barely made the goal of a thousand acres, but we made it. And she really had to have tenacity that I never understood until that time.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:47:32] Roberta Crenshaw – she and I did involve Umlauf Sculpture Gardens together, and we had to get House Bill 2420. And and we were dealing with Lias Bubba Steen. And it was just really that protection of Umlauf Sculpture Gardens, if it hadn’t been for Roberta and her tenacity. And I learned so much from that.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:47:52] There was city manager Toby Futrell. I still talk to Toby. Adore Toby. And it was always, you know, Toby was would have said the real estate, the parkland, the open space was the sexy part of their day.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:48:06] And Nancy McClintock, that changed my life forever.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:48:12] I got to know Janet Fish. She singlehandedly with her husband put in the Shoal Creek hiking bike trail. And she and I rode around one day and showed me where the Indian tribes lived. And we had the best time ever.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:48:25] And so Mary Gay Maxwell that passed away, served on the environmental board for years and would coach us on our presentations and tell us if we had too many pages, “And nope, nope, not that word”, and and we really do miss Mary Gay.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:48:43] So there were a lot of women that made a difference in my life that really have always been part of conservation.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:48:51] Now, tell me about, you’ve mentioned Nancy McClintock several times. Just tell me about her, where she fits into all this and and how she made such an impression on you.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:49:04] Nancy McClintock was the scientist, the biologist, she would call herself, that worked for ten years before ever there was a SOS, before there was ever any discussion of water quality. She and Ed Peacock wrote all kinds of brochures and information and really just laid the groundwork for what then when Kirk Watson stepped in in ’98, we took off and ran with their vision. But that vision from her side of it, from the scientific, water quality side.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:49:37] Austin Lebrock is an old name that goes back. Les Tull. But Nancy really was the manager, and she was, she just understood the whole picture as much as just the science. So she was able to help us kind of get through.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:49:53] I remember the first time I met Nancy, and she’s showing me a big map, and this is what we want to accomplish. And I’m thinking, “Yeah, right.” And and but, you know, there was no one that had better judgment, who was a better leader. And all those men that that worked for her still revere her with the highest of esteem because of what she brought to the table and how she really did save Barton Springs almost singlehandedly.

Lee Smith [00:50:24] And she was a biologist with the city?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:50:27] City of Austin, in the Watershed Department.

Lee Smith [00:50:32] And where did she come from?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:50:36] You know, I don’t. She was from the Piney Woods of South Texas. So…

Lee Smith [00:50:43] Or East Texas?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:50:44] East Texas I meant. I meant to say East Texas. Orange, down in there. But then she came here and just always had a heart for water, water quality, the science, the biology. And to team up with Nancy, there’s no one like teaming up with Nancy. We had some funny times, but we were in foxholes, too.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:51:05] There was one time we had to make a presentation and the council meeting had gone till 3:20 in the morning and we really needed this land acquisition discussed. And Jesus Garza was the city manager. And we’d been sitting there since 8:30 in the morning. It’s 3:20 in the morning. And I mean, we were practically cross-eyed. And he walked up and he said, “You’re going to do this presentation, but you’re going to go fast.”

Junie Marie Plummer [00:51:30] And we had those old-fashioned papers, the big paper you wrote your presentation on, then you flip it over the top. And so we walk in there and I just start grabbing pages at a time and going through the presentation. And later Nancy said, “I didn’t really know human lips could move that fast.”

Lee Smith [00:51:53] Now was it an overhead projector?

Junie Marie Plummer [00:51:55] No, it was an easel, the easel with the paper. And then you never were quite tall enough. And so then the thing skunked up at the top. And and then and you had written with Marks-a-Lot. And then if you made a mistake, you had to go back and redo that page.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:52:09] And and we always had maps and pretty pictures. Toby always required in our executive session. Kirk Watson, they wanted to see pretty pictures. So if we were in a drought like you gentlemen were discussing earlier, we still had pretty pictures. They might have been from the past, but they were pretty pictures, because someone always had a pretty picture of their ranch. Some family member had their favorite. “Oh, this is when it was really at its best and flowing.” And so we would always go, “May we borrow that?” And we would always use that as part of ours.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:52:45] But it was Nancy that I really locked arms with and really consider today just a mentor that is once in a lifetime.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:52:57] The future for conservation is always present, but until we begin to make additional investments into our our parks and our preserves and our open space, until there’s permanent funding sources, until we really begin to continue to invest in our open space, I think we’re in a critical juncture.

Junie Marie Plummer [00:53:16] And I really believe that the gray – which is roads and utilities and things of that sort – until the gray is planned with the green. And then until we come to a unified kind of vision of what we want Austin to look like, our resources are limited and we are losing because we don’t have these funds, because we don’t have a permanent funding source.

[00:53:42] And so we really needed, we had science guide us in the past, but I think the market today should alert all of us to what we can do to continue to fund our parks and our open space for the future.