South Carolina Environmental Awareness Award
The South Carolina Environmental Awareness Award acknowledges outstanding contributions made toward the protection, conservation, and improvement of South Carolina’s natural resources.
The SC General Assembly established the SC Environmental Awareness Award during the 1992 legislative session to recognize outstanding contributions made toward the protection, conservation and improvement of South Carolina’s natural resources. Each year the public is invited to submit nominations that are then reviewed by an awards committee, which considers excellence in innovation, leadership, and accomplishments that influence positive changes.
The deadline for nominations is December 31st.
Awards Committee
Members represent:
- SC Sea Grant Consortium
- SC Department of Natural Resources
- SC Department of Health and Environmental Control
- SC Forestry Commission
Guidelines for the S.C. Environmental Awareness Award
The purpose of the S.C. Environmental Awareness Award is to promote awareness of the environment and acknowledge exemplary accomplishments in the protection, conservation, and improvement of our natural resources. Areas of accomplishment include, but are not limited to:
- Protection, conservation, or improvement of soil, water, or air;
- Protection or conservation of native plants, animals, or their habitats;
- Improvement of natural resource management;
- Benefits to wildlife (game or non-game); and
- Increased recreational or aesthetic values.
Eligible Recipients must:
- Be a South Carolina resident;
- Possess upstanding moral character;
- Exemplify extraordinary dedication to preserving and improving the environment and natural resources of South Carolina.
Nominations will be judged on the impact of accomplishments. For example:
- Degree of innovativeness, originality, or pioneering that enhance environmental protection and preservation;
- Degree that contributions promote leadership in preserving and protecting the environment and natural resources;
- Size, scope, and impact of accomplishments;
- Degree that efforts promote educational opportunities for the public;
- Degree that accomplishments influence positive changes affecting the environment at the local, state, or national level;
- Short- or long-term benefits to the environment.
Past Winners
| Year | Recipient |
|---|---|
| 2011 | Dr. Patricia J. DeCoursey, Professor of Biological Sciences at USC |
| 2010 | Frank S. Holleman, III, President, Naturaland Trust |
| 2009 | Dr. Fred Holland, Coastal Ecologist, Charleston |
| 2008 | Benjamin Ziegler, Chairman, Pee Dee Land Trust |
| 2007 | Dr. Richard Porcher, Jr., Professor Emeritus, The Citadel |
| 2006 | Rick Huffman, Founder, South Carolina Native Plant Society |
| 2004 | John L. Knott, Jr., President, Noisette Company, North Charleston |
| 2003 | Burris Family, Owners, Cypress Bay Plantation Tree Farm, Beaufort |
| 2002 | Dr. Jack Turner, Director, Watershed Ecology Center, Univ. of South Carolina |
| 2001 | James D. Elliott, Jr., Founder, South Carolina Center for Birds of Prey |
| 2000 | Dr. Dave Hargett, Conservationist, Greenville |
| 1999 | Kenneth Strickland, Environmentalist, Florence |
| 1998 | Yancey A. McLeod, Jr., Environmental Educator, Eastover |
| 1997 | Brad Wyche, President, Friends of the Reedy River, Greenville |
| 1996 | Beaufort County Clean Water Task Force |
| 1995 | Dr. Whitfield Gibbons, Sr. Research Ecologist, Savannah River Ecology Laboratory |
| 1994 | Marion Burnside, Chairman, SC Department of Natural Resources |
| 1993 | Dana Beach, Executive Director, SC Coastal Conservation League |
| 1992 | Rudy Mancke, Naturalist, SC Educational Television |