Freda and Brad Dunne, accepting the Society of Environmental Journalists' 2007 Stolberg Award for Meritorious Volunteer Service, honoring Mike Dunne. Photo by Beth Parke. Click to enlarge.

The Stolberg Award was presented September 5, 2007, at SEJ's 17th annual conference in Stanford, California to Mike Dunne, posthumously.

SEJ is an organization that runs on a lot of volunteer power.

And every year since 1998 we've recognized an outstanding volunteer with the Stolberg Award, named for SEJ founding member David Stolberg.

The year 2007 was different.

We honored a man who was a stalwart SEJ volunteer, and a part-time staffer — paid a pittance, but paid nonetheless.

Normally, that means he wouldn't be eligible for the Stolberg, but in June 2007, the SEJ board voted to make an exception, in order to honor one of the founding members of SEJ.

Mike hoped — and we hoped — he'd be at the conference, but as many were aware, he lost his fight with cancer in July.

Ironically, that means we didn't break any SEJ rules after all.

Mike was an author, a teacher and an award-winning reporter for both print and television.

His great allegiance was to The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, where he covered Lousiana's oil and gas business and the state's vanishing forests, fish and wildlife and wetlands — which were also the subject of his book.

For SEJ, his first volunteer job was as a state correspondent for the Beat section of the SEJournal.

And he went on to become deputy editor of the Journal, where he helped editor Mike Mansur innovate new features and brainstorm the Journal redesign.

Along with Mark Schleifstein and Bob Thomas, Mike was instrumental in bringing the 2003 conference to New Orleans, and organizing the post-conference bayou trip.

Mike's volunteerism didn't stop at SEJ — he was also a very active volunteer in AA and the Boy Scouts.

David Stolberg always said he believed in the value of networking with your peers — and Mike maintained vigorous e-mail conversations with probably half the people who attended the joint Stolberg-SEJ Contest awards presentation on the evening of September 5th.

In an e-mail this spring, Mike shared with Stolberg-Award presenter Christy George a piece of advice he got from a friend and took to heart: "Plan like you'll be around for a long time, and live like you'll die tomorrow."

It's good advice.

Mike had a plan to make sure SEJ's membership wouldn't drop if he didn't make it to the Stanford conference himself.

He persuaded his wife Freda Yarbrough Dunne, who is also a journalist at The Advocate, to join SEJ.

She attended the conference, with Brad Dunne, one of their two sons, to accept the Stolberg Award, an engraved plaque, on Mike's behalf.

Information on the nomination procedure for SEJ's 2008 David Stolberg Meritorious Service Award will be posted here in the new year. Please check back.

This annual award honors exceptional volunteer work by an SEJ member. It was created by the SEJ board in 1998 and named in honor of SEJ founder David Stolberg.

Much of SEJ's best work is accomplished by member-volunteers: tour and panel organizers for the conference, awards program leaders, contributors to SEJournal, SEJ-talk and www.sej.org, freedom-of-information watchdogs, mentors, and leaders in diversity outreach. Volunteers define the heart and soul of SEJ, and they expand the group's reach and significance in ways that are not easily measured.

David Stolberg had a 38-year career with Scripps Howard that included duties for the Scripps Howard Foundation's annual Meeman Awards for excellence in environmental reporting. Stolberg always believed in "the value of networking, of the subliminal training that comes from an association with one's peers." In the 1980s, when Stolberg was assistant general editorial manager of Scripps Howard, he came up with the SEJ idea and kept suggesting it to Meeman winners until he found one who was willing to put in the volunteer time to organize with other journalists and make something happen. That person was SEJ's founding president, Jim Detjen.

Past winners include:
2006 — Dale Willman
2005 — Denny Wilkins
2004 — Ken Ward Jr.
2003 — Orna Izakson and Dawn Stover
2002 — Michael Rivlin
2001 — Russell Clemings
2000 — Paul MacLennan
1999 — Randall Edwards