COS Celebrates 2017's Conservation Award Winners

During our 105TH Annual Meeting and Dinner Social held December 7, 2017, COS presented conservation awards to members of our community.  WALTER MARCISZ received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Bird Conservation for his lifelong advocacy for Birds and Bird Habitat in the Chicago Region.  ANNETTE PRINCE received a Bird Conservation Award for her advocacy of Bird Safe Buildings Projects in the Chicago Region.

Additionally, beginning in 2015, COS has given its Conservation Award to volunteers who have given freely of their time and energy to do the avian-based restoration work at LaBagh Woods. This COS honor is now playfully known as “the Order of the Buckthorn” in recognition of the buckthorn removal which has been an integral part of the restoration work there. At the 2017 COS Annual Members’ Meeting, three of the longest-serving and most dedicated volunteers were added to the “Order of the Buckthorn”: ROY NG, FELIX WOHRSTEIN and ARLENE MCFADDEN (but please just call her McFadden). When told they would be receiving the conservation award, each of them insisted that others were more deserving of this honor than they were. That response reveals a great deal about each of them. Each is selfless, always at the LaBagh workdays, volunteering to do whatever is required to get the restoration or planting work accomplished. They often stay longer, come for extra “unscheduled” work efforts, and always do it with a smile and a kind word. Each of them is emblematic of ALL the deserving volunteers who are transforming LaBagh into a thriving urban forest worth preserving.

2017's Order of the Buckthorn Inductees