RTCC’s Jacques Selected
For Land Steward Award

Mike Jacques of Brookfield, in recognition of his commitment to working on the land, receives a Land Steward Awar from Elise Annes of Vermont Land Trust. (Herald / Sandy Vondrasek)

Mike Jacques, of Brookfield, is one of 10 students statewide honored by the Vermont Land Trust this spring for exceptional commitment to land stewardship.

Jacques was presented a Land Stewards Award last Tuesday, at the Randolph Technical Career Center, where he is a member of the environment studies/natural resource program. Presenting the award was Elise Annes, Vermont Land Trust’s vice president for community relations. He is the son of Louis and Kathy Jacques, and his parents, sister Brooke, and grandmother Shirley Luther were on hand for the presentation.

The recognition comes with a $250 cash award that may be used towards education, equipment, or materials.

Jacques, who graduates this week from RTCC, will study conservation and wildlife biology at Paul Smith’s College in New York.

He has participated in many community service projects such as Green Up Day and Firewood for the Elderly. He has also helped with the management of the Randolph town forests and with building the school’s new sugarhouse lab.

This is the fourth year that VLT has givien this award to students who have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to land. The intention of the award is to acknowledge outstanding student achievement, encourage future land stewards, and increase the visibility of Vermont’s vocational agriculture and forestry programs, which are vital to Vermont’s future.

The Vermont Land Trust is a non-profit land conservation organization. Since 1977, VLT has permanently conserved more than 1400 parcels of land covering 470,000 acres, or about 8% of the private, undeveloped land in the state.

The conserved land includes more than 630 working farms, hundreds of thousands of acres of productive forestland, and numerous parcels of community lands.