Bev Mazur
It’s one of my favorite mornings each year. On the first Saturday in March, Kathy Miner organizes Madison Reads Leopold. All day, starting precisely at 9:30 a.m. and ending in the late afternoon, readers step up to a simple podium at the UW Arboretum Visitor Center (formerly the McKay Center) and read a passage from Aldo Leopold’s writing.
For many years I’ve been lucky enough to get assigned Leopold’s fine essay “January Thaw,” which I read at the same time, around 9:40 a.m., each year. Then I sit back down in the audience and listen for another hour or so while others read aloud. There are no speeches. Some readers don’t even bother to introduce themselves, though you can follow along in a program. It’s just Aldo Leopold’s words washing over you.
It occurred to me that what Kathy Miner does each year, which takes a lot of organizing that she does on a volunteer basis, is really just a great gift to the whole community and to the spirit of conservation that has been so much under attack for the last few years. I asked her a few questions and her answers are below.
How many years have you been doing this?
Kathy Miner: I've been organizing Madison Reads Leopold since it came into being in 2006, so this is my 14th year. The first time I participated in any Leopold reading event was in 2003 — "Lodi Reads Leopold," held in the town's public library.
Lodi Reads Leopold was the brainchild of Tom Heberlein, who lived in Lodi and taught at the UW. He decided he was going to put Lodi on the map as "The Little Town That Reads Leopold." He organized a committee, and the first LRL was held on March 4, 2000.
Who has read every year?
Tammy Bieberstein, retired city of Madison parks ranger and coordinator of Madison Area Weed Warriors; Susan Carpenter, Arboretum Native Plant Gardener; and myself. You've read every year except the very first one. Others who have missed only one year include science writer Ron Seely; Madelyn Leopold; Arboretum Naturalist Jim FitzGibbon; Milwaukee Public Radio reporter Chuck Quirmbach; and historian Stu Levitan.
What gave you the idea?
I was inspired by Lodi Reads Leopold. I fell in love with A Sand County Almanac in 1972, and I've always loved reading aloud. When Aldo Leopold Weekend became a statewide celebration, I knew I had to bring the reading "home" to the UW Arboretum.
What’s your favorite memory from all the years?
I have so many. The first is the "birth spark" of Aldo Leopold Weekend in Wisconsin. I was present in Lodi in 2003 when George Meyer, then head of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, mused into the microphone that every town in Wisconsin ought to be reading Leopold that day, and when state Sen. Mark Miller, waiting in the audience, leaped up and shouted "I'll introduce that legislation!" He did, and then-Gov. Jim Doyle signed it into state law in 2004.
Other wonderful memories include the participation of Marie McCabe, widow of Leopold's colleague Bob McCabe. Marie read every year for 12 years, retiring at the age of 96. She's 99 now — I don't know if she'll make it to this year's event. She alone, of all the participants, had actually known Leopold and remembered the sound of his voice.
Greg Armstrong, former director of the Arboretum, used to read from his father's copy of A Sand County Almanac.
The first year, then-17-year-old Alex Eagan read A Tramp in November, which Leopold wrote when he was 17.
All the readers over the years who have dedicated their reading to a teacher or a parent who encouraged their interest in conservation and land stewardship.
From my seat at the back of the room, every year, watching audience members — some following every word in their own copies of the Almanac, some simply closing their eyes and letting Leopold's eloquence wash over them.
If you’d like to attend any part of this year’s event all you have to do is show up this Saturday, March 2 at the Arboretum Visitor Center. All the reading assignments have been made, but you can just take a seat and listen for as long as you’d like.
