Flathead Audubon Society awards Lifetime Conservation Achievement

Linda Winnie's contributions to the Flathead Audubon Society are woven throughout the organization’s past 30 years of progress. 

She has been recognized by the society with its Lifetime Conservation Achievement.

Raised in Illinois and Iowa, Winnie pursued bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics at the University of Iowa, followed by a doctorate in history and philosophy of science from Indiana University, where she joined the faculty. Her interest in birds was piqued when she began participating in field trips led by fellow IU faculty members. She shared this new passion with her two young daughters, putting out bird feeders and learning about the feathered visitors they attracted.

In 1988, she married fellow IU faculty member John Winnie on Big Mountain. John had taught at the University of Montana and purchased a cabin on Rogers Lake to maintain his Montana connection. The family spent summers there and started monitoring nesting loons.

This led to John’s appointment to the Montana Loon Society board and to Linda’s six years producing the society's newsletter. Their contributions were recognized when they jointly received the Loon Society Volunteer of the Year Award in the 1990s. 

Linda and John also conducted water quality testing on Rogers Lake and founded the Rogers Lake Association, a neighborhood association prioritizing lake protection. Linda later spearheaded zoning efforts that resulted in long-term protection of the lake’s south shore, where spawning streams and contributing springs are located.

In 1995, Linda and John retired to Rogers Lake, beginning her long association with Flathead Audubon. Wanting to learn more about the birds of Montana, Linda attended every Audubon field trip and sat in the front row at presentations by then-president Leo Keane so she would not miss a thing.

Her first foray into FAS leadership occurred when she assumed responsibility for publicity, issuing press releases to local newspapers and radio stations from 1995 to 2000 to generate awareness and membership. Over the years, her service expanded to include several leadership roles. At every step, Linda played a central role in shaping programs that helped define the organization’s identity. 

In the late 1990s, when organizational websites were still uncommon, Winnie and then-secretary Gael Sullivan established the first Flathead Audubon website on a server provided by National Audubon. After the server was shut down in the early 2000s, Willie formed and chaired a committee that launched a second site in 2006. 

An educator by both nature and profession, Winnie valued her role as a founding member of the education committee in 1999. She believed Flathead Audubon could best serve the community by promoting conservation education in the schools. The committee achieved that goal, beginning with the Community Naturalist Program, a teachers’ workshop that earned Montana Audubon’s Environmental Educator of the Year award in 2003. Over time, the efforts evolved into today’s robust education program.

One of Winnie's most demanding and ultimately rewarding projects was her long service on the Owen Sowerwine Committee, which she co-chaired with Brent Mitchell for many years. In the mid 1990s, Flathead Audubon assumed the state lease for Owen Sowerwine, a 400-acre forested river bottom vital to protecting water quality and wildlife habitat in the Flathead Valley. The committee began managing the property while working with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and Montana Audubon to secure permanent protection and preserve its conservation values. A cooperative effort by Flathead Audubon, Flathead Land Trust, Flathead Lakers, and the Flathead Valley community achieved success when the Owen Sowerwine Conservation Easement was secured by the Land Trust in December 2023 with grant funds and donations.