LEADING A SCHOOL OF CONSERVATIONISTS
William Edwards II, Oden, Ark.

William Edwards has spent his life practicing and teaching conservation through Oden High School's Woods and Waters Club. The club's president as a student, he is now its leader as Oden's principal. Under his leadership, more than one-fourth of Oden's high school students have joined. Members maintain a stretch of highway and the local rifle range, build bird boxes for the public, and raise catfish for a local derby, where they help young contestants bait hooks and handle fish. "We're a school of natural conservationists," Edwards says. "Our best fisherman is like our star athlete."

GUARDING THE LOCAL LAKE
Jeff Hakanson, Coventry, R.I.

As president of the Tiogue Lake Association, Jeff Hakanson has fought to ban two-stroke engines, to clean up a nearby landfill, and to reopen a spillway to reduce pollution. "I want a lake I can throw my grandson into without worrying," the 51-year-old mail carrier says. But in 1996 Tiogue Lake faced its greatest threat: the construction of a nearby million-square-foot retail development. Runoff threatened the lake's bass, trout, and white catfish. The TLA helped force the developer to allocate $225,000 toward repairing past damages and ensuring the future safety of the surrounding watershed.

BANISHING BARBED WIRE
Richard McDrew, Walnut Creek, Calif.

In the past decade, Richard McDrew has battled oppressive heat, poison oak, and the occasional rattlesnake to pull 150 miles of barbed-wire fencing from California's Mount Diablo State Park. The barbed wire was not just an eyesore: It had proved deadly for the park's population of blacktail deer, red foxes, coyotes, bobcats, and mountain lions. As president of the Mount Diablo Interpretive Association, McDrew worked with volunteers to clean up the 20,000-acre park, removing scrap metal and abandoned cars left over from ranching days that threatened to contaminate the park's groundwater. Formerly the head of San Francisco's Secret Service office, McDrew says he is still driven to serve the public.