Bemidji Pioneer: BSU celebrates environmental work with a ‘Feast of Green’ | News

BSU Sustainability Director Erika Bailey-Johnson presents the Amik award to former BSU professor Pat Welle on Monday during the Feast of Green at the American Indian Resource Center. The award was given in recognition of significant contributions to sustainability at BSU. Welle was a professor of economics and environmental studies for more than 30 years. (Jordan Shearer | Bemidji Pioneer)

BSU Sustainability Director Erika Bailey-Johnson speaks at the Feast of Green on Monday at the American Indian Resource Center. The event highlighted various sustainability efforts the university has made and recognized the individuals who championed them. (Jordan Shearer | Bemidji Pioneer)

BEMIDJI — As she paged through decades worth of old files documenting Bemidji State University’s nascent environmental efforts, Erika Bailey-Johnson said three names kept showing up.

Those three men — Pat Welle, Rich Marsolek and Steve Spigarelli — all received Amik Awards on Monday at the university’s annual Feast of Green, which aims to celebrate the sustainability efforts there and recognize those who’ve been instrumental in them.

“I just noticed how many critical, historical building blocks for environmental work on campus was created by those three,” Bailey-Johnson told the Pioneer. “Steve Spigarelli and Pat Welle and Rich Marsolek’s names were just on lot of the early work that really established us as a leader in the field.”

The awards’ name comes from the Ojibwe word for “beaver.” Each award was made from the wood of a white pine tree that used to be on campus, Bailey-Johnson said, and carved into the shape of a small beaver by a local woodworker.

Welle is an emeritus professor of economics and environmental studies at the university who focused his research on estimating the economic benefits of preserving water and forest quality, Bailey-Johnson told a group of about 40 people in the school’s American Indian Resource Center.

Marsolek was a long-serving environmental health and safety officer at BSU who helped pioneer the school’s dual-sort recycling system, among other initiatives.

And Spigarelli is emeritus professor of environmental studies at the university who directed its Center for Environmental Studies for more than 20 years.

“Bemidji State has been a leader in environmental research and education since the mid-1960s,” Spigarelli wrote. “I encourage BSU to build on this foundation of research and education.”

That seems to be the plan. A series of BSU students recapped what they’ve been up to in the school’s sustainability office and what they’ve got planned for the near-future: an environmentally friendly tiny house they’re building with the school’s engineering students; a “bio bin” at the school and Sanford Bemidji; and a green-minded art festival next month.