(Posted 10/6/08)

Dennis Money Receives NYSOWA M. Paul Keesler New York Outdoor Citizen Award
New York State Outdoor Writers Association honors Canandaigua conservationist for lifetime of service as advocate and educator


Dennis Money (l) receives the M. Paul Keesler Citizen of the Year Award from Bridget Keesler, daughter of the award's namesake. On right is Glenn Sapir, chairman of the award committee.

Old Forge, NY—Dennis Money of Canandaigua  received the New York State Outdoor Writers Association M. Paul Keesler New York Outdoor Citizen Award at the communicator association’s awards banquet on Saturday, Oct. 4, at the North Street Restaurant, in Old Forge, N.Y., during its annual conference.

The award was created in the name of one of NYSOWA’s most beloved and active members, M. Paul Keesler, the deceased co-founder of “New York Sportsman” magazine.  Keesler, through his writing and publishing efforts, spent nearly five decades promoting and conserving the outdoor wonders and recreational opportunities within New York State.  The award recognizes an individual or organization that effectively has raised the public’s awareness of outdoor recreational opportunities and conservation issues in the state.

Nominations could be made by the public, as well as by NYSOWA members.  Money, who currently heads Enviro Pros Group, the environmental consulting company he incorporated in January, was nominated by former NYSOWA President Melody Tennity, of Honeoye, for his lifetime achievements.  These include the Rochester Peregrine Falcon Project, the New York River Otter Project and Seneca White Deer, Inc., the latter being an ongoing campaign to save the unique herd of white deer on the former Seneca Army Depot as a treasure of the state and the biological world. 

“In following his struggle, I understand and appreciate his bare knuckle fight to the end,” Tennity wrote.  “Dennis is a truly civic-minded person whose life has been spent promoting human interaction with the outdoors.  If, at the end of our lives, we can say that we have made a difference, not only in the lives of our friends and families, but in the lives of strangers as well, then we have left an indelible stamp on history.  Dennis has done this and done it well.”

The New York State Outdoor Writers Association is a professional organization of communicators dedicated to increasing the public awareness, understanding and appreciation of our outdoor heritage in the use and enjoyment of natural resources.  Its primary purpose is to improve knowledge and skill among its members in the art of communication.

For more information on NYSOWA, visit http://www.nysowa.org.