September 25, 2007 At the World Forestry Center last night, we celebrated John's life with friends, family and colleagues. I was touched and impressed by the memories, fishing stories, and heartfelt expressions of love and friendship given by those close to John. Besides tales of all the fun everyone had fishing with John, many spoke of the work he had done to protect wildlife and habitat in our region throughout his long and dedicated career. It was announced that, because of his contributions to conservation in the great northwest, the Bonneville Power Administration is renaming an 800 acre wildlife preserve after John. This beautiful piece of habitat, purchased when John was the Director of Fish and Wildlife for Bonneville, was the first land in Oregon acquired to offset losses to wildlife due to construction and use of the federal dams. Tom Iverson took members of the family to see it on Monday. Click on this picture of our family to see more pictures of the John Palensky Wildlife Area. . .

All previous Update entries have been ARCHIVED and all of the archived Updates, Diaries, and Musings have been reformatted into chronological order.