[PAEE] Fw: Nature's Guardian John Ripley Forbes Dies At 93

[rroperti at zoominternet.net]

John Ripley Forbes came to Hutchinson, Kansas in about 1973 to give advice
on turning an old employee recreation area into a nature study area. Thanks
to his help, the outdoor education center that eventually became the Dillon
Nature Center was created. Many of the nature centers, natural science
centers, outdoor classrooms, nature reserves, etc. that were started across
the U.S. in that time period were at least partially the result of the
passion, energy, and vision of Mr. Forbes. He was definitely someone who
actually made a difference in the world and didn't just talk about changin

READ ON .......

By HOLLY CRENSHAW
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/29/06
John Ripley Forbes' starry-eyed reverence for the natural world never
dimmed.
It was his chlorophyll, his spiritual sustenance and his reason for living.
He followed it for the rest of his life like track prints across the soft
earth.
"There aren't that many people who know when they're 9 years old how they're
going to spend their life and never change,"
said his wife, Margaret Sanders Forbes of Sandy Springs. "I don't know many
people who lived such a full life and accomplished exactly what they set out
to accomplish."
What Forbes accomplished is a glittering network of more than 200 nature
centers and museums across the country that encourage children and adults to
love the outdoors as much as he did.
Among them are the Chattahoochee Nature Center, Fernbank Science Center,
Outdoor Activities Center, Cochran Mill Nature Center, Dunwoody Nature
Center, Sandy Creek Nature Center, Autry Mill Nature Preserve, Reynolds
Nature Preserve and the John Ripley Forbes Big Trees Forest Preserve, where,
fittingly, his memorial service will be held in September.
Much of his legacy was accomplished through two organizations he founded -
the Natural Science for Youth Foundation and the Southeast Land Preservation
Trust, which he started in 1976 to safeguard quickly disappearing green
space.
"I came to think of him as the Johnny Appleseed of the nature centers," said
Ann Bergstrom of Woodstock, executive director of the Chattahoochee Nature
Center.
"He worked tirelessly all of his life to raise the necessary funding and
build the necessary coalitions to bring these very important preserves and
nature centers together."
Forbes, 93, of Sandy Springs died of a heart attack Saturday at Emory
Dunwoody Medical Center. The body was cremated.
Memorial service plans will be announced by Wages & Sons Funeral Home, Stone
Mountain.
In boyhood, the Chester, Mass., native took long walks with his father,
rescuing birds' eggs and collecting butterflies along the way.
"His whole life grew out of that experience as a child, when he was
infatuated with a love of the outdoors and nature,"
his wife said. "His whole life was devoted to sharing that love with
children across the country."
At 14, he met famed naturalist William T. Hornaday, his neighbor in
Stamford, Conn., who took him on as a protégé.
Forbes never graduated from college, but studied at the University of Iowa
and Bowdoin College, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1987. While
attending Bowdoin, Forbes went on a 1937 Arctic expedition as an
ornithological collector.
As president of the William T. Hornaday Foundation, which later became the
Natural Science for Youth Foundation, he helped establish museums in Kansas
City, Mo.; Nashville; Fort Worth, Texas; Naples, Fla.; and elsewhere. In
Sacramento, Calif., he even set up an animal lending library, where instead
of books, students could borrow pet skunks, rabbits and turtles for a week -
perhaps to their parents' chagrin.
He crisscrossed the country and charmed and cajoled everyone he could,
including old-money millionaires like the Rockefellers, into donating to his
projects.
"He would meet some of these people like the Rockefellers,"
his wife said, "and they were just enchanted with his enthusiasm to do the
right thing."
Forbes first came to Atlanta in 1946 to help establish the former Fernbank
Nature Center, then settled here in 1971. He relocated the Natural Science
for Youth Foundation headquarters here while courting developers and civic
leaders to support his land trust effort.
"Many developers have done a terrific job of ruining this gorgeous city, but
I can't afford to get them ticked off at me," he said in a 1986 Atlanta
Journal-Constitution article.
"I want to reason with them and get their support while there's still time."
"He was tenacious and he was fearless, and I don't believe he saw obstacles
where other people saw them," Bergstrom said. "A man like that can be
controversial, and I've heard of people whose feathers he ruffled over the
years. But that's the mark of a mover and a shaker.
"You never accomplish anything if you're just out to appease, and he was
single-minded in his goals," she said.
"He never faltered and he never sold out."
David Dunagan, who serves on the Southeast Land Preservation Trust's board
of directors, said Forbes was upbeat and unassuming, the type who carried a
litter bag with him when he walked in the woods and rescued abandoned native
plants to transplant.
"It didn't bother him that he could go back to one of these centers and
people wouldn't know who their founder was,"
said Dunagan, an Atlanta resident. "He was humble. He didn't want to be in
the spotlight. He liked to raise money through personal contacts, then step
back and let these organizations run themselves.
"To him, you needed to reach people while they're very young and still have
a sense of wonder and awe," Dunagan said.
"Heaven knows how many people he's touched by opening their eyes to nature."
Survivors include a son, Ernest Ripley Forbes of Alexandria, Va.; a
daughter, Anne Forbes Spengler of Atlanta; and two grandchildren.
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