Early Adopter

On October 1, 2009, Ann Hamilton retired after 18 years as the grant officer responsible for the environmental portfolio at Houston Endowment.  Before that, Ms. Hamilton had served as executive director of the Houston Parks Board, development director of Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, and executive director of the Park People so when she came to Houston Endowment no learning curve was necessary.  She knew the territory - a very good thing for the Katy Prairie.

Even among environmentalists, prairies are often an acquired taste.  But in a landscape culture where arbolotary - as J. B. Jackson called it - often makes it hard to see the virtues of the prairie for the trees, Ann was a grassland connoisseur and warrior. 

Not long ago, she wrote:

I believe prairies to be at the very bottom of the environmental totem pole when it comes to funding and support.  This is partially because more people take them for granted.  In urban areas like Houston, many think of prairies as cheap, flat parcels of dirt ripe for development.  Less than one percent of native prairies remain undeveloped in Texas.  These wide open spaces are treasures of natural bounty, often referred to by those who study and love them as underground oceans teeming with life just under their surface.  Prairie ecosystems contain unseen, rare, beneficial wonders worth protecting and restoring.  One can stand amidst their tall grasses and listen to the voices of the past blowing across the plains, warning us to stop destroying them before it is too late.

At a time when the Katy Prairie scarcely registered on the environmental horizon, Ann helped make the case for an early grant from Houston Endowment that enabled KPC to hire its first executive director: Carter Smith.  Carter served as director from 1997-98 and is currently the executive director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.  More importantly, Ann played a pivotal role in arranging the Endowment's participation as a lead donor in putting together the funding package that enabled KPC to acquire its initial interest in the 6,500-acre Warren Ranch, which is still the most important single land transaction in the Conservancy's 15-year, 18,000-acre history, and a landshed moment for the conservation movement in Houston.  We couldn't have done it without her.

Over the years, Ann and Houston Endowment have remained constant friends of the Katy Prairie.  Ann is a frequent visitor to the prairie as well, so we were especially gratified when Ann chose to direct a gift in her honor from Houston Endowment to construct a trail through a restored section of tallgrass prairie on KPC's Nelson Farms preserve.  The trail will be named for her, in recognition not only of this most recent gift but also of her vision and stalwart support, beginning back when, unlike today, the friends of the Katy Prairie were pretty thin on the ground.  



Mary Anne Piacentini
Executive Director