Bench dedication, celebration of prairie preservationist's life planned for May 20

May 13—ST. JOSEPH — A place to sit may seem a small tribute for a life's worth of work preserving prairie but there is little doubt that the hard-working David Monk would be very appreciative.

On Saturday, May 20, a bench commemorating the late environmentalist's life will be dedicated in a spot that he helped preserve and develop along the Kickapoo Rail Trail, just west of St. Joseph.

The seemingly indefatigable Mr. Monk, 91, died Dec. 2, 2022, at University Rehabilitation Center in Urbana, where he lived the last several months of his life with pancreatic cancer.

"He was an icon," said his friend Kathy Martin of St. Joseph, who with her husband Glen Martin, often visited their friend of some 50 years.

"He said he wasn't in a lot of pain. He had a lot of visitors and was always talking about the next project. He was talking constantly to everyone who came. He was an energetic person," Kathy Martin said.

The bench will sit between miles 5 and 6 of the trail just west of St. Joseph, which Kathy Martin describes as "one of the best examples of original remnant prairie we have."

"That mile is sponsored by Heartland Pathways, the organization that Dave founded and the organization that worked with other groups in the area to get that trail going," she said.

After the bench dedication at 10:30 a.m., which will feature tributes from other environmentalists and music, Mr. Monk's friends are invited to gather at 2 p.m. until evening for a potluck and bonfire at the Kalyx Center, 436 E County Road 1300 N in Monticello.

Kathy Martin described the setting as a "big beautiful barn" on the farm owned by Bill Taylor, one of the owners of WEFT radio, where Mr. Monk hosted a weekly radio program "The Prairie Monk," for many years.

In a tribute written by Glen Martin, he said Mr. Monk used that forum to talk about "re-wilding," the idea of nature healing, recovering and reclaiming land altered by humans.

"He knew that public support for protecting wild places is essential and that providing trails is one way of getting people out to experience nature and thereby develop a constituency for environmental protection," Glen Martin said.

Besides establishing several urban "pocket prairies" in Champaign County, Mr. Monk helped found Grand Prairie Friends and introduced the notion of turning retired railroad right-of-ways, where the small amount of remaining original Illinois prairie can be found, into trails.

Mr. Monk established Heartland Pathways in 1987, a group focused on acquiring those retired railroad lines that succeeded in turning 33 miles of them in Piatt County that might have been lost to private development into accessible trails.

Mr. Monk worked with the Champaign County Design and Conservation Foundation to help develop the long-awaited Kickapoo Rail Trail, now owned and managed by the Champaign County Forest Preserve and the Vermilion County Conservation districts.

A native of Australia, Mr. Monk had a charming accent and a unique appearance. His tall stature and wild, curly hair made him stand out in a crowd. He often appeared before public bodies lobbying for different preservation projects, whether it was a piece of prairie or the Greek Revival Cottage that the Urbana Park District owns in Leal Park.

"He definitely was a bur in the side of many people. If he hadn't been, we wouldn't have a lot of the prairie and trails we have. He would push different organizations to keep going," said Kathy Martin. "He taught this whole community about prairie."

In a spot-on description of Mr. Monk's dogged diplomacy, Glen Martin wrote: "He seems not to comprehend mean, nasty people. When he encounters hostile individuals, he acts as though they just need more information about the issue at hand to bring them around."

Mr. Monk came to the University of Illinois in the 1960s, where he was a graduate teaching assistant in botany. In 1963, he earned a master's degree in education. He documented natural features of Allerton Park in Piatt County and wrote interpretive materials.

In 1969, while still at the UI, he formed the Natural Areas Instruction Development group, a precursor to the Education Resources in Environmental Services (ERES), that he led for many years. It served as a resource for education materials for teachers and students.

Mr. Monk was not only a hands-on outdoors naturalist, he was an accomplished photographer and silkscreen printer. He established and taught "Reading the Landscape" at Parkland College and for several summers was a visiting lecturer at the Chicago Art Institute where he taught about art in the landscape, Glen Martin said.

With other local artists, he helped sponsor the first Artists in the Park event at West Side Park in Champaign in the later 1970s that later morphed into Taste of Champaign-Urbana.

An avid recycler, he also worked with the Preservation and Conservation Association to repurpose building materials from demolition sites.

"Dave served constantly with on-the-ground labor and as a catalyst, encouraging involvement and bringing people and organizations together to accomplish mutual environmental goals," Glen Martin said, adding that his friend's important roles often went uncredited.