Thank you Lee !

A Tribute to Lee Meyers

by Randal Rake

When a mind takes us back to gaze into the quiet reflecting trout pool of our life, we glimpse the many who have been a part of this ever-shifting stream.  Some inhabit our memory like the fleeting ghost shape of a trout once secure in the deception of riffle and gravel.  Others are there, our thoughts of them as solid as a granite bolder buried deep in the bed of the stream.  They provide us with strength and the building blocks of our character.

We come to understand our need to be with like-minded decent people, those willing to act on ideas with thoughtful words and muscle.  Through Trout Unlimited, we are fortunate to meet many that develop into friends, making a lasting difference in our lives and environment.  These are our mentors and peers, examples of what we ought to be.

Trout Unlimited is an action organization and the living embodiment of this call to act is Lee Meyers.

As we look back 28 years, essential to the success of the Green Bay Chapter is an active volunteer with a deep calling, from the head and heart, to care for the health of our streams and community.  Care for those in need: 23 years of organizing and participating in our annual kids fishing event.  Care for membership: securing meeting programs. Care for the education of future generations: organizing student sponsorships to environmental camps, key role is creating the Trout Habitat Education Trail at the Reforestation Camp.  Care for the resource: nine years as Work Projects chair.  Care for the Chapter: multiple terms on the Board of Directors, Vice President, fundraising banquet.

As a fisheries biologist, with the financial help of our Chapter, Lee furthered the science of streams and healthy trout populations by showing the need for intact and interconnected habitat. The science proved that conserving and protecting watersheds results in more trout and larger trout. This study changed the understanding of trout and trout habitat management.

Some people quote authors, some authors quote people, and some people are the physical spirit of a quote.  For Lee, Roderick Haig-Brown offers us a proper depiction of his call to care and take action.

“I have been, all my life, what is known as a conservationist. It seems clear beyond possibility of argument that any given generation of men can have only a lease, not ownership, of the earth; and one essential term of the lease is that the earth be handed down on to the next generation with unimpaired potentialities. This is the conservationist’s concern.”

Most definitely not a fleeting shadow in the stream, the indelible mark of good work by a good man has been shared with us.

Thank you Lee for your service.