LandWatch Lane County: Bob Emmons — Read The Dirt Read The Dirt

LandWatch Lane County: Bob Emmons

LandWatch Lane County: Bob Emmons    Robert Emmons spent his early years in Tennessee and in New Orleans where he graduated high school. After earning B.A. degrees in Sociology and English from Florida State University in 1965, he headed west to Eugene for graduate study in English at the University of Oregon. He taught writing and literature for four years there as a teaching fellow and received a Doctorate in 1974. After graduation he worked as a housing rehabilitation adviser with a federal loan program at the City of Eugene, and then as a park specialist in horticulture in the City's parks department. Mr. Emmons has served on numerous Lane County committees and task forces over many years. He was a founding member of Sustainable Eugene Economic Development in 1983 and of Alton Baker Park for All of Us in 1986, during which time he wrote an editorial and co-wrote a city-wide ballot measure that protected 165 acres of Eugene's public open space from a proposed golf course and soccer fields. He served on the Lane Parks Advisory Committee from 1988-93; as Chair in 1992. From 1980-95 he coordinated the grass roots development, maintenance and oversight of Scobert Gardens, an edible and native plant park in Eugene's Whitaker Neighborhood. In 1996 he was a founding member of LandWatch Lane County, a 501(c)3 dedicated to the protection of Lane County's natural areas, open space, farms and forest lands. He has been president of the group since 2004 and edits the LandWatch newsletter. LandWatch maintains a website at LandWatch.net. Since 1990 Mr. Emmons has been privileged to own, love, live on and steward 63 acres of forest and meadow in the Little Fall Creek valley 25 miles east of Eugene. He is the author of " T. E. " in the Anthology of Eugene Writers #1; The Death of Eugene Citizen, a street play; Clearcutting the Greenway, a documentary film; and of numerous newspaper editorials and letters.