Barbara Frank exemplifies community leadership and volunteerism for environmental conservation and has worked locally, regionally and nationally to champion environmental conservation and protection. She has co-founded several groups including the Mississippi Valley Conservancy, Hixon Forest Nature Center and the Coulee Region Chapter of Sierra Club and is involved in a host of other environmental and policy groups including League of Women Voters and Audubon.
While serving as a board member of both Mississippi Valley Conservancy and Gundersen-Lutheran Hospital in 1998, Barbara helped launch the 10-partner public-private La Crosse River Conservancy project that has protected over 350 acres of riverine wetland in La Crosse, including a 101-acre land donation from the Hospital. This key partnership involved both the Cities of La Crosse and Onalaska, and was a forerunner for the Conservancy’s La Crosse Blufflands Protection Program in La Crosse that was launched in 2001.
This year Barbara and her husband, Don, are donating land to the La Crosse Blufflands Protection Program, a unique partnership effort to protect almost 8 miles of bluffland above the City of La Crosse. This donation will connect with two other parcels to protect almost 1 mile of scenic bluffland in southern La Crosse. This was the last of Barb’s original family land and the site of her early beginnings as a budding environmentalist exploring the prairies and forests of our Coulee Region bluffs.
This generous gift caps a lifetime spent in the pursuit of environmental conservation of our precious resources.
~ Cynthia Olmstead, Mississippi Valley Conservancy
