Greetings:
In case you hadn't heard the sad news, one of our north Idaho forest activists passed away on Wednesday.
For those of you who didn't know Leroy Lee, he had a heart of gold and a personal dedication in protecting our public lands. I spent a consider amount of time with Leroy on field trips into the Clearwater, helping him do several stand exams (in the Castle and Hemlock Butte areas), and working on numerous timber EA's and EIS's.
I will always remember him for his never ending toothless smile, corny jokes, good taste for my homebrew, extensive knowledge of the forests, and of course his music.
Any time I hear Bob Marley's Redemption song, I fondly remember one of our field trips on the North Fork district where Leroy sang that song to Art Bourassa, the district ranger, with changed lyrics to reflect how the timber companies have cut the woods and now they are gone (does anyone his exact lyrics?).
That was Leroy. Leroy, take care my good friend, I'll be looking for you over the next ridge,
Gerry Snyder
Leroy
I first met Leroy a few years after Diane and I moved here from the mid-west in the late '80s. We had decided it was time to get involved in environmental work and Dennis Baird from Sierra Club introduced a number of us green (in more than one way) activists to Leroy. Leroy knew the woods and was a tremendous resource for our small group. He helped us to learn how to map soil types, vegetation types etc. and showed us how to create overlays (before the computer software was available) to graphically illustrate proposed clearcuts on unstable soil types or other such chicanery. This was an extremely powerful tool at the time. He was the mentor for our small group (Clearwater Forest Watch) that allowed us to write some of the first administrative appeals to really bad Clearwater Forest timber proposals (remember "Sneaky Sheep" and "Fish Bate"?), and we won!
One of my fondest memories of Leroy is his leading us into the files at the Supervisors office with FS staff standing nervously by, to "find the smoking gun". It was obvious that they weren't used to activists going through their files, and having Leroy with his hands on their files made them damn scared!
I also remember outings to the woods with Leroy, in particular one where we camped on Isabella creek. It had been a hot dusty day spent in clearcuts, and after we had pitched our tents a few of us looked longingly at the ice-cold waters of Isabella, knowing that the water would be unpleasantly cold. Suddenly Leroy popped out of the bushes, fully clothed and dripping wet. I laughed and asked him why he hadn't taken his clothes off. He looked back at me increduously and said, "why would I have done that when I could wash both myself and my clothes at once?"
Leroy had impeccable integrity and was never afraid to tell you, or the FS that they were wrong. However, he had a way of doing it that didn't alienate the other person, but instead often gently brought the other person around to his way of thinking.
Farewell friend Leroy, I trust that your spirit has been set free to soar over the Wild Clearwater Country.