Natural area guardian angel: Sterling’s Tim Keller wins lifetime achievement award

ROCK FALLS – It’s the first Lifetime Achievement Award the Rock River Development Authority has given.

The question is, how is it going to top its first recipient?

The inaugural award was given April 11 to longtime area conservationist Tim Keller, known far and wide as the “Godfather of Restoration.”

Keller, 81, a 1960 Sterling High grad, has a lifetime of dirt under his fingernails.

He served with the Peace Corps in 1962, teaching farming techniques to the Aymara Indians in Bolivia before attending the University of Illinois, where he earned his agronomy degree.

He then became a U.S. Department of Agriculture soil scientist, mapping the soils of 10 northern Illinois counties, and eventually, a subject matter expert, or “SME,” on native grasses and wilderness.

Keller is one of the founders of the RRDA, as well as the Natural Area Guardians and the Prairie Preservation Society of Ogle County. He’s also a founding member of Middle Rock Conservation Partners, which is focused on conservation efforts in Lee, Ogle and Whiteside counties.

He has left his considerable footprint on the Nachusa Grasslands prairie preserve in Franklin Grove, where one building bears the name Tim Keller Education Center, and at the Byron Forrest Preserve, which he also helped establish, and which also is home to the Keller Education Center, where, among many other activities, the Keller preschool meets.

Among other sites, he’s responsible for that lovely little patch of prairie along state Route 2 at Sauk Valley Community College in Dixon coming under the care of the Sauk Prairie Committee and the Natural Area Guardians of Lee and Whiteside County, and he also saved a sliver of prairie between Lyndon and Agnew, part of which became an Illinois Nature Commission Preserve.

He has guided many private landowners who started their own private prairie plots, or have undertaken other restoration projects.

He was a board member and vice president of the Whiteside County Soil and Water Conservation District, and a board member of the Natural Land Institute in Rockford.

In 2010, the Sterling Schools Foundation named Keller a Distinguished Alumni.

As chairman of the historic Manahan Home restoration committee, and one-time president and vice-president of the Sterling-Rock Falls Historical Society, he also has worked to preserve other aspects of local history. For example, as a member the Bicentennial Commission, he helped dedicate Union Grove Cemetery west of Morrison. He also helped bring the Lincoln statue to Propheter Park in Sterling.

He wasn’t honored only for his past achievements, though, vast though they may be.

It is Keller’s generous spirit, his willingness to share his six decades worth of hard-earned knowledge and the way in which he inspires others that earned him the RRDA recognition.

“By sharing his vast knowledge of natural resources and wildlife with the next generation, he has ensured that his efforts will continue to bear fruit into the future,” James Marks, secretary of the RRDA said at the ceremony.

Keller and his wife, Carolyn, a preservationist in her own right, have two daughters. They have retired from farming and operating Ye Olde Cider Mill on the west side in Sterling (where they once were named Whiteside County Conservation Farm Family of the Year).

Cleanup at Oppold coming up

The Rock River Development Authority is looking for volunteers to help with its June 4 land and river cleanup, which begins at 7 a.m. at Oppold Marina, 200 Stouffer Road in Sterling.

Volunteers, especially those with boats, are asked to check in in advance with RRDA President Kyle Sommers, 815-718-4693, so they have a good idea of how many will be coming.

Dress appropriately; water and cleanup materials will be provided.

Volunteers also can message Sommers, or learn more about the RRDA, on its Facebook page, www.facebook.com/RRDA.RF.