Luci Baines Johnson, Ken Burns, and Lynda Johnson Robb last Thursday when Burns was honored with the Lady Bird Johnson Environmental Award/LBJ Library Photo by Jay Godwin
The 2017 Lady Bird Johnson Environmental Award has been presented to Ken Burns for reawakening a nation's consciousness to the natural world through his work, including The National Parks: America's Best Idea.
As a direct result of the publicity and broadcast of this documentary, national parks across the country saw a dramatic increase in attendance. Burns has directed and produced some of the most influential, important, and popular historical documentaries of our time.
The $25,000 award was given to Burns on April 27 at a program at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. Presenting the award were Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson's daughters, Lynda Johnson Robb and Luci Baines Johnson.
The Lady Bird Johnson Environmental Award honors outstanding achievements in the preservation, restoration or improvement of the natural world that embrace Mrs. Johnson's style, energy and commitment to her work. Its mission is to increase public awareness of the environmental challenges facing our country by highlighting the work of selected individuals, corporations, and non-profit organizations.
"Lady Bird Johnson was one of the most impactful environmentalists of the 20th Century," said Larry Temple, chairman, of the LBJ Foundation. "With her voice and her actions she elevated to the general public's consciousness the importance and significance of protection and enhancement of our land, our waterways, our air, our forests, our parks and every facet of the environment. Lady Bird Johnson would have taken great pride in knowing this Award was being presented to Ken Burns."
In his 40 years of filmmaking, Burns has reached millions of viewers of PBS through his inventive style of storytelling.
The National Parks: America's Best Idea, broadcast on PBS in 2009, captured an idea as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical: that the most special places in the nation should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone. Filmed over the course of more than six years at some of nature's most spectacular locales – from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska.
The musician, Wynton Marsalis, has called Burns "a master of timing, and of knowing the sweet spot of a story, of how to ask questions to get to the basic human feeling and to draw out the true spirit of a given subject." Burns's films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including 15 Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations; and in September 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, he was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Lady Bird Johnson Environmental Award
The LBJ Foundation Board established the Lady Bird Johnson Environmental Award in 1992 in honor of Mrs. Johnson, whose vision for the environment has inspired the efforts of millions of Americans to preserve our natural resources and beautify our nation. Past recipients have included Ted Turner, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, U. S. Senator John Chafee, Laurance Rockefeller, Patrick Noonan, and Michael Dombeck.
Comments
In 2011, when the NPS started their Smokies shenanigans, we became aware of their cries for money in other places, I dubbed it the Ken Burns effect. Because you can almost time it, to the day of the release of the NPS series that the green and gray became the green and green. If there is one thing the NPS was able to successfully do, it was to take the capital of goodwill afforded by Burns series and use it to maximum advantage and begin their feeing, maintenance backlogging and many other matter of sins. I wish Burns would revisit the subject and take a look at the sins of the NPS since the 90s.
That could be an entire series in and of itself. I could see chapter one entitled, Jarvis- Master of Disaster. Episode 2- Fee them at all costs Episode 3- Harrassment, A Window Peekers Guide Episode 4- Ranger Danno-We don't need those kinds of guys anymore Episode 5-The Smokies Firestorm-Let it Burn. Episode 6-Zinke-The Rough Riding Wannabe Stinkie.
(Im having too much fun here) What say ye, Ken?
Geez, smokies - shirley you can't be this negative in real life, can you?