Off To A Good Start

Steve Lilly is helping preserve Oregon’s natural beauty

By Eric Angevine

“The challenge is to live with and respect nature without destroying it.”
Steve Lilly ’92

Like many a trailblazer before him, Steve Lilly has followed the Oregon Trail, pursuing the bounty of the West. But it’s not money he’s after. The 1992 Old Dominion University graduate counts the natural beauty of the outdoors as a treasure far greater than gold.
“I recommend that everybody drive across the United States at least once in their life,” says Lilly. “The geography is so diverse.” He ought to know. Lilly and his wife, Susanne, sold their home in Waynesboro, Va., in 2005 and set out on a transcontinental journey to follow their westward bliss. The two Virginia natives had fallen in love with Oregon during an earlier visit, and decided that it was time for a life-changing move. They settled in the college town of Corvallis, home of Oregon State University.

Eventually, Lilly landed a dream job with the Greenbelt Land Trust (www.greenbeltlandtrust.org). His official title is Outreach/Membership Coordina-tor, but he prefers the less formal, unofficial title of “Director of Fun.” His mission? Show his neighbors the value of the natural resources that many take for granted. His role as one of the public faces of the conservation organization takes him from a nature walk with school kids one day to the podium at the local Rotary Club the next.

Lilly said his major in speech communication and participation on the ODU forensics team, where he honed his public-speaking abilities, helped prepare him for his current job. “I really enjoyed giving informative speeches and did not really care too much about placing during competition,” he recalls. “I would talk about baseball, or environmental issues like the shrinking population of large bluefish along North Carolina’s Outer Banks.”

The Lillys miss friends and family from back home, but they have really settled in to their new environs. “My wife says that exploring Oregon makes you feel like a kid again,” says Lilly. “We have the seashore, the Columbia Gorge and the Cascades within driving distance. We’ve really come to love hiking as well as picking fresh blueberries, blackberries and strawberries.”

Preserving that sense of childlike wonder and appreciation of nature for future generations is part of what motivates Lilly to work so hard for the Greenbelt Land Trust, whose stated mission is “to secure and protect in perpetuity open space that preserves natural beauty, protects habitats and provides a connection to the natural world,” a goal it hopes to accomplish by encouraging landowners to sign legal documents called conservation easements, which forbid future development of their personal property.

If a parcel of land is deemed ecologically sensitive enough, the trust will enter negotiations to buy it outright. Volunteers with the organization spend time maintaining public trails in hopes that there will always be open space, even as development surges through the valley. Lilly says that tapping into that natural well of community enthusiasm is one of the best parts of his job.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of land conservation is having the vision and patience to work within Mother Nature’s timetable, he adds. One of his most memorable moments since moving to Oregon was a joint effort between nonprofits, in which he helped plant 3,000 saplings along the Luckiamute Watershed on one of the rainiest spring days of the year. “Sometimes you have to remember why you’re there in the first place, and envision how the creek area will look in five, 10, even 50 years. That’s what makes it not seem so much like work,” Lilly says.

His daily routine is made even more enjoyable by a heavy emphasis on outdoor recreation. He visually evaluates Greenbelt properties as part of the land trust’s stewardship effort, which sometimes involves canoeing local waterways, and he leads nature hikes for adults and schoolchildren on field trips.

“One of our biggest concerns is something called Nature Deficit Disorder. Most of us can remember a special creek or tree or field we used to play in, but urban sprawl is destroying habitat not only for animals, but for our kids as well,” Lilly says. The Greenbelt Land Trust is preserving those special places on their behalf.

He is often dispatched to serve as tour guide to these natural spaces, which some city kids have never seen before. “Recently, we led 18 children from Head Start on a hike at a place called Lupine Meadows. They ate wild strawberries, and saw butterflies and wildflowers they would never see closer to home. Hopefully, they’ll learn to value those things and become land stewards themselves.”

One thing is certain: Oregon has a variety of land that needs preservation. From the Pacific shore to the eastern desert, and from the volcanic Cascade range to the John Day fossil beds, it’s all beautiful to Lilly. “The challenge is to live with and respect nature without destroying it,” he says. “Oregon is growing, so as it grows, I want to share these special places with people and let them know that these areas are worth saving forever.”

Eric Angevine is a freelance writer living in Charlottesville. An ODU distance learning student, he hopes to earn his professional writing degree next spring.