Winter Lady Slipper Award

Introducing Connie Backlund our Winter Lady Slipper Award recipient! Connie has been involved with Conserving Carolina (previously Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy) for 25 years, since the founding of CMLC. Connie had a career in National Park Service and was brought to Western North Carolina through a position at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. Through her work there she was invited to attend one of the “creation meetings” for CMLC and has been involved since. She first got involved with the land protection committee and has since helped in many ways with functions and fundraising that helped lead her to her current role as Board President. Connie is always willing to help in any way that she can and is always doing it with a smile.

Connie’s shared that her most rewarding volunteer experience was getting to welcome the AmeriCorps Project Conserve 2019-2020 members during their orientation and getting to share her passions of conservation with the next generation of conservation leaders. She strongly believes in the importance of sharing nature with young people because of how lucky she was to explore and learn in the outdoors with her father growing up on a family farm.

When Connie is not volunteering with us you may find her up in Ohio continuing to keep the family farm she grew up on, which is now protected farm land. She has recently converted some of the crop-growing land into a native prairie for wildflowers.

We appreciate Connie’s continued dedication and everything she has done for Conserving Carolina!