Gaylord Nelson going home to Clear Lake

JS Online: Gaylord Nelson dies at age 89

The former Wisconsin governor and U.S. senator is regarded as one of the most significant people of the 20th century in Wisconsin, ranking fourth in a survey of 42 historians and other experts. Only Progressive Gov. Robert M. LaFollette Sr., conservationist Aldo Leopold and architect Frank Lloyd Wright ranked higher in the 1999 survey by the Journal Sentinel. When the same panel listed the top 10 events of the century, they picked as the sixth most significant Nelson's establishment, as governor in 1961, of the state's Outdoor Recreation Acquisition Program. The initiative resulted in the long-range acquisition, preservation and enhancement of a million acres of recreational land. Yet as impressive as Nelson's achievements were for and in his home state, his most enduring legacy was his unrelenting effort to protect the environment - not only in Wisconsin but everywhere. He was the founder in 1970 of Earth Day, which is regarded as the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Twenty-five years later, Nelson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, for that and his lifelong work on behalf of the environment.

Long article on the life of Gaylord Nelson in today's Milwaukee Journal. I get a kick out of reading the sections where Nelson talked about working with colleagues from the other side of the aisle--and becoming good friends with some of them. Sure doesn't sound like today's politics, does it?