Nancy Hamill Winter wins NLI’s George and Barbara Fell Award

Nancy Hamill Winter is the recipient of this year’s George and Barbara Fell Award. (Photo provided)

From press release

Nancy Hamill Winter of Stockton, Ill., was selected by the Natural Land Institute (NLI) to receive this year’s George and Barbara Fell Award for her distinguished achievements in land conservation. Award winners significantly advance natural area preservation, management and restoration in northern Illinois in the tradition of the founders of the NLI.

Winter helped to start the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation, a not-for-profit charitable and educational organization, and the Equine Land Conservation Resource, a land conservancy that works with landowners to protect rural lands for horseback riding. She protected 648 acres of her farm near Stockton with perpetual conservation agreements held by the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation, and established an easement defense and stewardship fund with a generous gift to the Foundation. She also recruited her neighbors to protect their land with easements, for a total protected area of 1,360 acres of some of the most beautiful rural landscape in northwestern Illinois.

Judith Barnard, president of the NLI, said Winter is an advocate for land conservation and has been active in many conservation groups that protect land resources in Illinois.

“Nancy is a generous supporter of conservation programs through her family foundation, including the Land Trust Alliance, The Nature Conservancy, the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation and the Natural Land Institute,” Barnard said. “Her dedication to volunteer service was inspired by her family, and by her lifelong passions for horseback riding and the outdoors. This led her to move from the Chicago suburbs to the rolling hills of Jo Daviess County, where she became active in land protection and regional planning.”

Winter served as president of the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation from 2004 to 2005, and is on the board. She is president of the Equine Land Conservation Resource, is past president of the Illinois Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, and serves on the board of the Prairie State Conservation Coalition, the state association of conservation land trusts.

Founded in 1958, the NLI conserves prairies, woodlands and wetlands in northern Illinois. The George and Barbara Fell Award was presented at the group’s annual meeting at Cliffbreaker’s Restaurant March 23.

Print This Article