We are delighted to share this message from Burgundy Center for Wildlife Studies Director Vini Schoene. Vini has directed the BCWS for going on 4 decades and is a science and conservation educator of renown! One of her many ‘extra duties’ has been a long-running, highly personal effort and labor of love to help us sustain the wildlife campus her father Lester and family helped create for Burgundy in the 1960s. The recent acquisition of one of the larger properties neighboring our land at the Cove is a big step forward in buffering the place and educational experiences we cherish there.

At 4 p.m. on August 30, I signed a few lawyerly papers in Romney, WV, and our mountain campus in West Virginia increased by 105 acres. It was a triumphant moment, marking a big step forward in our efforts to protect the serenity and safety of Cooper’s Cove. It’s hard to say when this project started. Perhaps it was during that summer in the mid-1980s, when we heard construction equipment in Stuart Hollow (just below the Bald to the west), and we realized that Cooper’s Cove was not as remote and protected as we’d thought. Michael Kolp, a summer camp staff member, declared “we have to buy Stuart Hollow.” There was no money to do any such thing. We are lucky that it wound up with local farmers who use it only for hunting.

Michael, BCWS camper but not BFCDS student, was an avid birder and outdoorsman and had found his vocation while teaching geology at the BCWS. He went on to lead trips for Outward Bound. Tragically, he died from a lightening strike at the age of 28. His memorial service was held in a shady spot near the Bald, and at the end of that day, his parents asked that we honor Michael by starting a fund to protect the Cooper’s Cove Wildlife. Soon we had enough money to purchase a 6-acre lot adjacent to our land atop Cooper Mountain—now known as Michael’s Garden.

Summer camp alumni had been asking for years why we weren’t soliciting them, and in 2006, we set up the Cooper’s Cove Conservation Fund, taking over from the Kolp Fund. Donations come from folks inspired by their camp or school experiences at the Cove: many donors have never set foot on our Alexandria campus. Stuart Hollow is not available, but we had also been anxious about the fate of the nearby “Fry property,” an unspoiled, wooded cove of ferns, blueberry bushes and neotropical birds at the other end of Left Ridge. Due to good relations with neighbors, we’ve had access to that part of Cooper Mountain for the last 40 years, and Burgundians have been able to explore a 5 mile loop of valley and ridge. Then it went on the market in 2004: development there would have created a steady stream of traffic right below our pond.

It took us 12 years to raise the money, and we don’t quite have all the Fry Property, but these are key strategic acres we’ve acquired. If you were out night-walking with us in 8th grade, you were just there! Look forward to seeing it for yourself this spring if you are visiting with the 4/5 classes. We owe a great deal of thanks to the many people who helped make this acquisition of land that buffers our Cove possible.