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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Leroy was one of my few heros. I am glad that
I was able to tell him that in person. I did not know him well, but well
enough to know this Earth weeps at his passing.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Aaron Ament</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=london@moscow.com href="mailto:london@moscow.com">Bill London</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=msolomon@moscow.com
href="mailto:msolomon@moscow.com">Mark Solomon</A> ; <A title=prall@moscow.com
href="mailto:prall@moscow.com">prall@moscow.com</A> ; <A title=alee@asij.ac.jp
href="mailto:alee@asij.ac.jp">Ann Lee</A> ; <A title=hubbleannie@yahoo.com
href="mailto:hubbleannie@yahoo.com">annie hubble</A> ; <A
title=tyedye@moscow.com href="mailto:tyedye@moscow.com">Arlene Falcon</A> ; <A
title=amasom@hotmail.com href="mailto:amasom@hotmail.com">andrea masom</A> ;
<A title=curley@turbonet.com
href="mailto:curley@turbonet.com">curley@turbonet.com</A> ; <A
title=lapaglia@uidaho.edu href="mailto:lapaglia@uidaho.edu">Kristen
LaPaglia</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Friday, January 19, 2007 10:43
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Vision2020] Leroy Lee has
died</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>From the Spokesman-Review</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><TT></TT> </DIV>
<DIV><TT><BR></TT></DIV>
<DIV><TT><FONT
color=#000000><X-TAB>
</X-TAB>Friday, January 19, 2007<BR><BR>Forest activist LeRoy Lee, 50,
dies<BR>Last years spent as science teacher<BR><BR>James
Hagengruber<BR>Staff writer<BR>January 19, 2007<BR><BR>LeRoy Lee, hailed as
a "giant" by conservationists for his work in exposing the overcutting of
federal forests, died Wednesday morning at his home in Santa, Idaho. He was
50 and is believed to have died of a heart attack, friends
said.<BR><BR>Although Lee once testified before the Congress and uncovered
what many in the conservation community say was one of the biggest
environmental scandals in recent Inland Northwest history, he lived a
simple, private life and focused most of his energy for the last decade on
teaching science classes in the St. Maries School District.<BR><BR>John
Cordell, principal of St. Maries High School - where the school mascot is a
lumberjack - said Lee was beloved by students for his eccentric style of
teaching physics, chemistry and biology, which included frequent use of a
guitar, a harmonica and magic tricks.<BR><BR>"It just ticks me off - he goes
to the grave with the tricks he's never even shown me answers to," Cordell
said. "He was way cool. He was a great teacher."<BR><BR>Lee assumed an
important role in a community where he was once told never to return. It
happened in the early 1990s during a meeting in St. Maries with small
logging contractors, according to Barry Rosenberg, a friend and director of
the Kootenai Environmental Alliance. Tension was high because timber sales
were being curtailed in national forests across the nation. Many loggers
blamed environmental lawsuits for the slowdown, though Lee and other
conservationists contended the situation was partially due to years of
overcutting by the U.S. Forest Service.<BR><BR>"The minute I opened my
mouth, people started yelling at me," Rosenberg recalled of the meeting. "It
just got out of hand. LeRoy and I were back to back. We thought we were
going to get nabbed. We were both warned never to come back to St. Maries
again."<BR><BR>Lee never really left the place, though he steered clear of
public environmental activism after getting work as a teacher in the late
1990s. Cordell, the high school principal, said Lee never hid his
views.<BR><BR>"He was a tree-hugger kind of guy at heart," Cordell said,
adding that Lee and his students sometimes engaged in vigorous debate over
land-use practices. "It was never vicious, never mean."<BR><BR>Lee, a
California native, was working as a seasonal contract worker for the Forest
Service near Avery, Idaho, in the mid-1980s when he discovered what he
believed were widespread inaccuracies in how the agency tracked timber
harvests. Essentially, the Forest Service records showed tens of thousands
of acres of mature trees where the ground showed stumps.<BR><BR>Using piles
of maps, aerial photos and agency computer records, Lee uncovered massive
discrepancies in records kept by national forests across the region. In
northwestern Montana's Yaak Valley, for instance, three-quarters of
clearcuts were listed on paper as mature forest.<BR><BR>In 1992, Lee
explained his findings before the House Interior Appropriations
Subcommittee. Forest Service managers were exaggerating, Lee said, because
the forest couldn't grow fast enough to keep up with the pace of harvest,
but these large-scale cuts also meant big budgets.<BR><BR>"They've
fabricated a paper forest," Lee told the subcommittee.<BR><BR>Congress
investigated and found inaccuracies on 15 national forests across the
West.<BR><BR>Rosenberg traveled with Lee to Washington, D.C., for the
testimony. Lee wore leather-braided ponytails and had gaps in his teeth. He
didn't own a suit or a tie, but Rosenberg eventually persuaded him to wear a
jacket and tie bought at a secondhand store.</FONT></TT></DIV>
<DIV><TT><FONT color=#000000><BR>"He was a back-to-the-lander, the salt of
the earth," Rosenberg said. "He was a giant."<BR><BR>Spokane conservationist
Dr. John Osborn was also closely involved in the so-called "phantom forest"
issue, which received national media attention. He said Lee had nothing to
gain by blowing the whistle on the agency that employed him.<BR><BR>"He was
a guy with incredible personal integrity and concern about the forests,"
Osborn said. "He knew the woods. Š It took someone like LeRoy, who knew the
woods, who had the skills as a timber stand examiner and had the personal
integrity, to do this. To lose him at such a young age is just a
heartbreak."<BR><BR>Lee insisted he did not blame the Forest Service for the
discrepancies. The agency was simply "implementing the will" of the American
public, who wanted "toilet paper and cheap two-by-fours," he said in an
interview with the Lewiston Tribune shortly after testifying in
Congress.<BR><BR>When he was in his 40s, Lee earned a teaching certificate
from Lewis-Clark State College. He had a gift for connecting with troubled
students, Cordell said. In 2005, Lee was named North Idaho's high school
science teacher of the year by a statewide association.<BR><BR>By all
accounts, Lee lived the light-on-the-land lifestyle he preached. He and his
longtime partner, Elizabeth Taylor, raised two sons and organic vegetables
at their home in Santa - friends say he always seemed to have produce to
share. Lee also had an interest in the culture of the Nez Perce Tribe and
spent hours hiking the nearby backcountry, which is one reason many were
shocked by his sudden death.<BR><BR>"I bet he didn't have 5 percent body
fat," Cordell said.<BR><BR>Lee's intimate knowledge of the forests of his
backyard is what made him such a powerful force, according to Chuck
Pezeshki, an environmentalist from Pullman who worked with Lee. In a message
sent to colleagues across the region, Pezeshki hailed Lee for teaching him
how important it was to "walk the ground you are trying to defend and know
more about what you're trying to defend than the guys that are trying to
destroy it."</FONT></TT><BR><TT><FONT color=#000000></FONT></TT></DIV>
<DIV><TT><FONT color=#000000>Lee was buried Thursday afternoon in the Santa
cemetery.</FONT></TT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
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