Every year Applegate Siskiyou Alliance presents a local environmental advocate with the Chris Bratt Environmental Advocacy Award to acknowledge the dedication and hard work of local environmental advocates in the Applegate Valley. The award is named in honor of Chris Bratt.
Long-time resident, environmental activist, and founding member of Applegate Siskiyou Alliance, Chris Bratt, passed away in 2019 after decades of advocacy in the Applegate Valley. Starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s Chris was a tireless advocate for the environment and worked on a wide variety of issues, including aerial herbicide spraying on federal lands, policy issues, lawsuits, timber sales, and off-road vehicle abuse.
In the 1980s Chris was a founding member of Thompson Residents for Environment and Education (TREE) and he served on the board of Headwaters fighting timber sales across the region. He was also a founding member of the Applegate Partnership and Watershed Council, The Rogue Institute, GEOS Institute, the Applegater community newspaper, and Applegate Siskiyou Alliance.
A friend and fierce advocate, Chris Bratt is missed in the Applegate Valley, but his spirit lives on in all of us who advocate for this landscape. Following Chris’ passing in 2019, ASA began the Chris Bratt Environment Advocacy Award to honor those in the Applegate Valley who have demonstrated a long-term commitment to environmental advocacy and to the protection of the Applegate River watershed.
Recipients of the award include: Marion Hadden (2019), Cheryl Bruner (2020), Chant Thomas (2021), Jack Duggan (2022), Suzie Savoie (2023), and Diana Coogle (2024). We honor each of these recipients for their efforts to protect the Applegate Siskiyous and the lands we all hold so dear.
For more information on Chris Bratt and his legacy in the Applegate Valley read our blog post, “In Memory of Chris Bratt: A Fierce Advocate, a Loving Friend, and a Hero of the Applegate Valley.”
Recipients of the Chris Bratt Environmental Advocacy Award
2019 Marion Hadden
Marion Hadden received the award for her long-standing involvement with Applegate Siskiyou Alliance (ASA). Marion was a founding member of Applegate Siskiyou Alliance and has been on the ASA Board of Directors since its inception. She has worked to fight timber sale after timber sale, build trails, support community-based conservation and environmental education, while advocating for permanent habitat protections with the Siskiyou Crest Coalition. Marion has lived in the Applegate Valley since 2005, was a good friend of Chris Bratt before he passed away and is an avid naturalist and birder. Her efforts are more than worthy of the Chris Bratt Environmental Advocacy Award!
2020 Cheryl Bruner
Cheryl Bruner is a founding member, the current Secretary and an active Board Member of the Williams Community Forest Project. She has been working to protect forests in the Applegate and Williams areas since moving to the region in 2005. Cheryl has worked to oppose private land logging in the Williams watershed, worked to support private land buyouts, like Pipe Fork, and continues to work for the environment in Williams and beyond with the Siskiyou Crest Coalition. She is an avid hiker and homesteader in the Williams Valley. Thanks to Cheryl for her years of efforts and advocacy!
2021 Chant Thomas
Chant Thomas moved to the Applegate Valley in 1975 and was integral to forest and habitat protection efforts in the region for over four decades. He lived at Trillium Farm on Birch Creek in the wilds of the Dakubetede Roadless Area starting in 1976 and fought timber sale after timber sale, while promoting the protection of wilderness habitats. He was a leader in the movement to protect ancient forests for many years and worked directly with Chris Bratt in the early days of the environmental movement in southwest Oregon. He worked for the environmental organization, Headwaters, for many years, ran an environmental organization out of the Little Appelgate Valley called Threatened and Endangered Little Applegate Valley (TELAV), and ran the Birch Creek Arts and Education Center with an environmental education program focused on the Siskiyou Mountains surrounding his home in the Little Applegate Valley. Chant currently lives in the wildlands of New Mexico outside Silver City, but we are in debt to him for his years of activism and the foundation he laid for Applegate Siskiyou Alliance.
2022 Jack Duggan
Jack Duggan first moved to the Applegate Valley in 1970 and has lived on his families historic homestead on Forest Creek for almost 40 years. He has long engaged in advocacy for the environment of the Applegate. He has fought BLM timber sales around the Applegate, and for many years advocated against the proliferation of illegal off-road vehicle trails on federal lands. Jack is an advocate for the environment and the people of the Applegate Valley, and has always been an active and engaging community member. He was friends and colleagues with Chris Bratt and has fearlessly, eloquently, and tirelessly advocated for the environment in the Applegate. Thanks Jack!
2023 Suzie Savoie
2023 Suzie Savoie is a long-term supporter and volunteer extraordinaire for Applegate Siskiyou Alliance. Since moving to the Applegate Valley in 2002, she has fought timber sales, illegal off-road vehicle trails, public land grazing impacts, and damaging federal land projects of all sorts. She has also promoted native plant and habitat protection and restoration, while supporting new hiking trail development, organizing fundraisers, supporting public land stewardship opportunities, leading hikes, and conducting educational events for ASA. She also works with the Siskiyou Crest Coalition promoting permanent habitat protections for our region and runs Klamath-Siskiyou Native Seeds, a wildcrafted native seed company based in the Applegate Valley. Thanks to Suzie for her years of hard work and advocacy!
2024 Diana Coogle
Diana Coogle moved to the Applegate Valley in 1972 and has long been engaged in community and environmental advocacy. Diana has worked with various environmental organizations over her many years in the Applegate Valley, including her current advocacy with the Siskiyou Crest Coalition. She was a lead organizer for the Siskiyou Crest Festival held in Williams in 2023, is currently working to support the Acorn Women Lookout Artist in Residency Program, and regularly volunteers to support permanent habitat protections in our region. An avid hiker, writer and poet, Diana has written about the Applegate for many years, and was also a long-time host of a Jefferson Public Radio segment, in which she famously signed off from with the line, “From the mountains of the Applegate River. This is Diana Coogle.” Thanks Diana for both building pride in this beautiful place and combining your art with advocacy!