On February 1, 2022, Tom Frey was the guest for our Speaker Series. Tom has been associated with our Preserve since before it was designated Preserve. He was a landscape architect with the Garland Parks Department, working for GPD Director Jim Stone, all during the time in the 1980s when the area was being evaluated.
He worked with many people such as Bobby Scott, the young Garlandite who pushed and pushed for the area to be set aside as a preserve. He guided many regional experts on walks through the forest. The experts represented the best of Texas and they sent correspondence about our preserve’s qualities to advocate for it to be named as a preserve. The experts were from, among others, BRIT, The Nature Conservancy, UT at Austin, Texas Natural Heritage Program, Texas Dept of Water Resource, SMU, US Fish and Wildlife.
So… you see that the designation of this area as Preserve, was no happy accident. It is the culmination of hours and months of advocacy and Tom Frey was there throughout the process.
And he became the adviser and intermediary when the Society was formed in 1898. And still, although new retired, he is available to the Society for advice and to lead walks and to be a featured speaker so we can keep the history of the Preserve alive.
