Silver "Eddie" Award!

This morning's email brought great news today from my editor at National Parks magazine: "The Refuge," the article I wrote on the crisis facing the nation's largest elk herd and the haven established nearly a century ago to protect it, was honored with a Silver "Eddie" Award in its category at the FOLIO Gala in New York City! (The Eddies, also called FOLIO Awards, are like the Oscars of national magazine publishing.) The Eddie goes to the magazine, but I am proud to have written a Silver-winning article.

Here's how the article opens:

Dawn comes late to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on winter mornings. When the sun finally edges over the high ridges that crowd the town of Jackson and paints the Tetons pink, the huddled mounds studding the snow-covered meadows along Flat Creek finally come into focus as thousands of sleeping elk. They stir, shaking the hoarfrost from thick pelts with a clatter of antlers and flapping of ears. Plumes of breath rise from thousands of black nostrils, forming a shimmering cloud in the frigid air as the elk wait for breakfast to be served.

And soon it is: The growl of engines in low gear accompanies the sunlight as rubbertracked crawler tractors appear, pulling trailers loaded with 20 to 30 tons of alfalfa pellets across the snow. As a tractor approaches a group of elk, the driver opens a gate in the underside of the trailer, releasing a stream of green pellets.

The elk crowd flank to flank like so many dairy cows, lipping the pellets from the snow and pawing for more. When the pellets are eaten, some elk drift away to forage in the snow-covered landscape. Others hang out in groups, digesting their meal. As the first of the day's horse-drawn sleigh tours thread their way through the crowd of animals, a few bulls pick fights with each other, clashing racks while cameras record the scene.

Read more at "The Refuge". (Click on the title of the article.)

I don't write for the recognition, but it's surely a kick to get that kind of national accolade.