The Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education has announced that the recipients of the 2019 Excellence in Conservation and Environmental Awards. Nominated by their peers, those receiving the recognition have exhibited outstanding innovation, leadership and achievement and collaboration and cooperation within and beyond the environmental education field.

One the award recipients is Vanessa Avara, the Assistant Director at the Milford Nature Center near Junction City. She has been sharing her passion for wildlife for more than 20 years, the last 11 year at the Milford Nature Center as the assistant director.

The center is the home of educational exhibits and nature trails and also does a substantial amount of education programming for schools and the community. The educational programs offered from topics on different species of wildlife to water, food, shelter and space that make up habitate for different living creatures.

As noted by Pat Silovsky, Director of the Milford Nature Center, since 2008, “4,000 program to over 118,000 people have been given by the staff of Milford Nature Center and Vanessa has been there for nearly every one of them.”

Avara has been instrumental is creating pollinator experiences for visitors that include the installation and maintenance of a beehive, raising butterflies for the butterfly exhibit and creating pollinator gardens designed to attract and support bees and butterfields, as well as a monarch waystation to provide critical places for monarch butterflies to stop and feed as they make their migration to Mexico.

Avara has also provided leadership for our state birds of prey. She was the first woman falconer in Kansas, and has provided countless hours of consultation and education to birders and falconers. Vanessa is the co-author of the Great Plains Nature Center first pocket guide on Raptors.