Friday, July 30, 2010
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| 7/22/2008 5:16:00 PM |
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Hurricane man in love with nature
Carolyn Harmon
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| J. LAWRENCE SMITH became interested in birds and nature in the sixth grade. Photo by Carolyn Harmon |
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HURRICANE - When J. Lawrence Smith was in sixth grade, the beautifully colored birds in his science textbook sparked an interest in him that followed him the rest of his life.
Smith, 67, of Hurricane, had been a member of The Brooks Bird Club Inc. since 1957. When he was in junior high school he started reading a column by John W. Handlan, one of the founders of the Handlan Chapter of The Brooks Bird Club Inc. of West Virginia. He wrote the column for the Charleston Gazette, which appeared frequently, called "Signs Along the Trail," which left a big impression on Smith. Handlan often talked about the bird club activities in his column.
"I still have a whole file full of the columns I clipped out from over 50 years ago that I saved," Smith said.
The first thing Smith did with the Handlan Chapter of The Brooks Bird Club was the 1954 Christmas Bird Count. About that time, Smith acquired some field guides of birds, trees, and flowers that he saved. He also collected and identified insects and leaves.
One of Smith's most prized possessions was a scrapbook of flower specimens he was required to make for his sophomore class. He cherished it all these years, until it burned up when his station wagon caught fire a few years ago.
"We were moving, and of course when you move you're sticking stuff everywhere, and my flower collection went in where the spare tire goes into the station wagon. When it caught fire, I was broken-hearted," Smith said.
While at West Virginia University, Smith studied subjects such as botany and West Virginia plant life, and he learned about the spruce forests and that the birds that inhabit the spruce forests are the same as the birds in Canada.
"I was fascinated by all of this, and then when I lived in that part of the state I wrote my first book, 'The Potomac Naturalist,'" Smith said.
"The Potomac Naturalist-the Natural History of the Headwaters of the Historic Potomac" was published in 1968, and talks about the natural heritage, as well as the history, of Pendleton, Hardy, and Grant counties.
Smith went onto write three other books, including "Blackwater Country," published in 1972; "The High Alleghenies: the Drama and Heritage of Three Centuries," published in 1982; and "Birds of the Kanawha Valley (1770-1996)," published in 1996, which was an updated version of the one he contributed to authored by Charlie Handley in 1976. He also has one waiting in the wings that is not published yet.
Along with his books, Smith has written columns over the years for many newspapers, such as a series he wrote on the wildlife animals of the state for the State Magazine Section of the Sunday Charleston Gazette Mail. He currently writes for the "Friends of Blackwater Newsletter," and contributes frequent stories to "Wonderful West Virginia Magazine."
During his life as a naturalist, Smith found a couple of years to be a teacher and 35 years to be a United Methodist minister. When Smith was involved in the church, he would go from place to place talking to people. Since he loved birds, he would ask if anyone knew about them in the areas he visited.
According to Smith, one is never too young or too old to become a naturalist. It is just about finding out what one is seeing. When Smith began studying birds, there were not a lot of books for identification. Now, a great deal of information is readily available and there are numerous clubs to join. In honor of his devotion to the study of nature, Smith was given a lifetime membership to the Brooks Bird Club.
"Nature is the only reality," Smith said. "And the study of nature gives you a bond with reality. I used to say there are two most fascinating eternal questions: where did all of that out there come from, and where did we come from? In nature, you come in contact with some expression of creation."
To find out more about the Handlan Chapter of the Brooks Bird Club, log onto www.kvbirdclub.org. Some of Smith's books can be found under the out of print book section at www.barnesandnoble.com.
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