ST. PAUL — The Minnesota Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry have named Jack and Geraldine Happe, and Bev Hofmann and the late Tom Hofmann from St. Cloud as their 2015 Outstanding Forest Stewards.
The Happe and Hofmann families were nominated for the award by Benton SWCD.
DNR Division of Forestry and MASWCD offer the award to honor landowners who have
implemented innovative forestry conservation activities, demonstrated leadership, and achieved
significant results in the protection of Minnesota's forestry resources.
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The Happes and Hofmanns have made a big commitment over the years to take a beautiful woods
and protect and restore it to the Bur Oak Savanna they have today. This has been no small or
inexpensive task. Many hours of time and many dollars have gone into livestock exclusion, forest
stewardship planning, tree planting, buckthorn and red cedar control and many other activities.
Their long term sustained commitment to this ecosystem restoration is both outstanding and
impressive.
Along the way they have also demonstrated substantial water quality stewardship. Their
properties are within the Little Rock Lake watershed, a lake that is severely impacted by summer
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algae blooms. They completed two streambank stabilization projects using bioengineering
techniques(red cedar revetments, shrub and brush bundles and seeding native grasses), provided
red cedars for a downstream streambank stabilization project, cooperated with the DNR and
SWCD on water sampling and aquatic macroinvertebrate sampling, and have offered their
properties for tour stops over the years so SWCD and NRCS staff can showcase good
environmental stewardship to the community.
