Long-time Alliance member and former board president Walt Rule passed away on April 18 after a long illness.

Walt was born May 30, 1931, in Plainfield, New Jersey. After a distinguished career in the US Forest Service (USFS), including nearly nine years (1968-1976) as District Ranger for the Ouray District of the Grand Mesa, Gunnison and Uncompahgre National Forests, he and his wife Nancy retired to Ouray in September of 1986.

Soon after Walt retired, he joined our Alliance’s Forest Management Committee. His knowledge and expertise proved to be an invaluable asset to the committee’s campaign to promote responsible public land management.

At that time, the USFS was bending over backwards to fast-track aspen timber sales to provide the Louisiana Pacific Corporation with the raw material it needed for its new waferboard plant in Olathe. Walt was a vocal critic of the USFS’s plans and played a key role in preventing several poorly planned timber sales. Walt also contributed to the report, “Social Effects of Aspen Harvesting in Western Colorado,” which our Alliance published in 1988.

Walt joined our Alliance’s board in 1989, and served as president in 1991-1992.

In 1998, Club 20 released a paper once again calling for increased aspen timber cutting in western Colorado. Walt helped write our Alliance’s critique of the paper, which he called “industrial forestry propaganda,” adding that “the science behind the Club 20 paper is very selective.”
In 2000, our Alliance honored Walt’s outstanding contributions as a volunteer by presenting him with the Chuck & Betsy Worley Award.

Walt was a caring, compassionate and informed leader for the people and
communities of western Colorado. The world was a better place with Walt in it, and he will surely be missed by all who knew him.