The North Coast lost a legendary conservation giant on December 30, with the death of Humboldt County resident Lucille Vinyard, known to many as “the mother of Redwood National Park.” North Group Chair Gregg Gold remembers: “Lucille was a force for good in so many ways, and she touched the hearts of everyone who was privileged to know her. I doubt I will ever meet another person like her in my lifetime.”
As a newly recruited Sierra Club activist, Lucille was instrumental in the formation of the Redwood Chapter’s North Group in 1964, the year the Club began a campaign to preserve the remaining ancient redwood forests in the region. For the next four years she led the battle to establish a national redwood park, an effort that included leading hikes and float trips, taking still photographs and movie footage, promoting the park proposal both inside and outside the Club, and testifying at government hearings in Eureka, Sacramento, and Washington, DC. In 1965, her 12-minute presentation to the Senate Natural Resources Committee in Sacramento received a rare standing ovation from the audience of 300.
In 1971, Lucille began working for passage of the California Coastal Zone Protection Act, then spent the next nine years monitoring coastal development permits in Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties. As Sierra Club watchdog at regional Coastal Commission meetings from 1973 to 1981, she attended every meeting but three; from 1985 to 1990, she coordinated the annual Coastal Clean-up Day for Humboldt and Del Norte Counties.
Starting in 1974, she became actively involved in the formulation of management plans for the BLM’s King Range National Conservation Area, serving on the agency’s Ukiah District Resource Advisory Council for two years. She worked -- successfully! -- for both the Wild and Scenic Smith River and the passage of the California Wilderness Act, was a founding member of the North Coast Environmental Center and the Redwood Natural History Association. Last summer despite serious illness she eagerly signed a letter to Congressman Jared Huffman urging him to introduce legislation protecting new Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers.
Besides serving as a North Group executive committee member almost continuously from the Group’s founding in 1964 until 2012, Lucille chaired the Group from 1970-1978, chaired the Redwood Chapter from 1976-1978, and spent more than ten years as the secretary of one or both. Awards included a Special Service Award from the national Sierra Club in 1999, a Resolution of Appreciation from Assemblymember Virginia Strom-Martin the same year, Woman of the Year award from Assemblymember Patty Berg in 2003, and a Certificate of Recognition from State Senator Pat Wiggins in 2008, “celebrating 90 years of life and insatiable efforts to keep the planet safe for future generations.”
That’s the kind of insatiability the planet needs more of, as do we all.
At press time no memorial services had been planned, but a celebration of Lucille’s life is expected in the spring, probably at an appropriate location such as Lady Bird Johnson Grove.
by Victoria Brandon, Redwood Chapter Chair
