J. David Bamberger Wins Leopold Conservation Award

Congratulations to J. David Bamberger of Selah-Bamberger Ranch Preserve in Blanco County for winning Texas Parks and Wildlife's top honor, the Leopold Conservation Award.

Look for the ads in the September issues of Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine and Texas Monthy.

Bamberger, a vacuum cleaner salesman and co-founder and CEO of Church's Fried Chicken turned internationally-recognized conservationist, was the subject of award-winning author Jeffrey Greene's book Water from Stone: The Story of Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve (Texas A&M University Press, 2007). Bamberger's late wife, Margaret Bamberger, provided illustrations for the book.

". . . Bamberger Ranch Preserve stands as a motivating symbol of the power of private landower conservation. Much like Aldo Leopold, who purchased spent Wisconsin land in 1935 and worked to restore it, Mr. Bamberger's 5,500 acre
ranch near Austin was in poor condition when he purchased it in 1969," the award sponsors wrote, in a brochure distributed during the awards program.

Acclaim for Water from Stone:

"This is a beautifully written, beautifully illustrated portrait of what happened to 'the sorriest piece of land in Blanco County' after J. David Bamberger and his wife, Margaret, rescued an arid, 5,000-acre spread from more than a century of neglect and misuse. . . .─Dallas Morning News

". . . one of the Texas Hill Country's greatest conservation success stories."─Texas Parks & Wildlife

J. David Bamberger, Selah-Bamberger Ranch Preserve