Mac, you should come over here and see this," Jane Dustin spoke in a near whisper as she beckoned with one hand for me to follow her through the glowing aspens. "This is always our favorite time of day here." We walked out of the grove of aspens and limber pine in which we were camped in and sat down next to her husband, Tom. (See Summer Frontline 2003.) It was their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Tom turned briefly and smiled before redirecting his gaze towards the mountain and the Tri-Territory road snaking its way in the vastness of the Red Desert. As we watched in silence the dark volcanic rocks of Steamboat Mountain surreptitiously began to change hues, first gold, than orange and than crimson. We were not alone. Violet-green swallows chattered as they dove through the air above us, a lone night hawk circled overhead contemplating making a kamikaze swoop, and a few coyotes yipped in the next draw. Without warning, a great horned owl, who had been sitting motionless on a ridge behind us, swooped down, narrowly missing a bat.

"Yes, this is truly God’s Country," Tom intoned. "No holier land exists. God, I do love it so." Jane nodded in tacit approval. We continued to watch the colors change for a good thirty minutes before relocating to our places around the campfire where we discussed the importance of citizen activism, the love that we had for the Red Desert and the need to keep fighting for it, no matter the cost.

The memory of that weekend on a magic desert mountain many years ago with the Dustins is firmly etched in my mind.

However, sadly, neither one of them is still with us. In mid July, just seven months after his wife, Jane, unexpectedly passed away, Tom also died peacefully in his home in Huntertown, Indiana. Tom was 80 years old, Jane was 74. Long-time supporters of the Wyoming Outdoor Council and the environment, their loss is already being felt by many.

Says former WOC Director Dan Heilig, "We’ll miss them. They were dear friends and allies who fought hard to protect the best of Wyoming. They inspired us and challenged us and excited us to do what was right, not only through their words but through their example. People will always remember them for their efforts in Wyoming and Indiana and elsewhere."

Since the 1950s, Tom and Jane had been staunch advocates for Wyoming wild lands, ever since they started visiting the Red Desert, the Winds and the Yellowstone area.

Their son, John Dustin, of Whitefish, Montana fondly remembers family camping trips to Wyoming with his parents and sister, Mary. "I remember Dad saying that there was no place on Earth where there was the chance to find such solitude as in the middle of the Red Desert, and I believe that to be true. It was an adventure at every turn. Wyoming had new things and new places everywhere. From looking for packrat nests in the desert to building campfires to canoeing and fishing in the Green River Lakes and being self sufficient, it was incredible."

The desert was also a place that deserved respect. After taking a day trip in the family’s old War War II jeep into the Boar’s Tusk area, an oil line broke in the vehicle. Says John, "Fortunately, dad has some tools and some bailing wire and fixed it. But being out in the middle of nowhere it gave me the impression as a ten-year-old that it was the kind of place that could eat you alive."

Tom and Jane fought hard for the Red Desert right until the end, mobilizing grassroots opposition to both Jack Morrow Hills plans within Indiana through the Indiana Division of the Izaak Walton League of America and the numerous other conservation groups that they held leadership roles with as volunteers. But besides advocating for Wyoming’s wild places, and mobilizing opposition to the Administration’s renewed efforts to drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Dustins were renowned in their home state of Indiana for any number of conservation initiatives over the last half century.

Due to the Dustins’ combined efforts with "equally radicalized colleagues" (as Tom often said), Congressional legislation was passed in 1966 to protect in perpetuity a large portion of the Indiana Dunes and Lake Michigan shore as Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Later, this dynamic couple fought successfully for a ban on phosphates being used in laundry detergents in Indiana, lobbied for increased protections for many of the state’s streams and waterways, successfully fought clearcutting in Hoosier National Forest and helped found Acres, Inc. Northeast Indiana Natural Area Preservation Land Trust, an organization that has successfully conserved wildlife habitat throughout much of the state through the establishment of 45 nature preserves.

John remembers the late nights that the family spent preparing mass mailings for the various campaigns that they were involved in. "You have no idea how many envelopes we stuffed," says John. "Us kids, mom and dad and our friends, we’d set out a dozen card tables with people at every station and we’d get the mailings done. Later when we went to bed, we could still hear the tapping and clanging of that old Remington typewriter, as dad would write press releases or editorials to the local papers."

An old friend of the Dustins and a fellow conservation advocate, Herb Read of Chesterton, Indiana, worked closely with them for several decades on the highly successful Indiana Dunes protection campaign and other conservation issues. Remembering the beginning stages of the campaign in the early 1960s, Read recalls, "The developers and some of the politicians thought that by ignoring us, we’d go away. But we didn’t go away. We were trench fighters. Tom Dustin made sure we didn’t go away. He would sit down at that typewriter and type out a missive that would surely grab the eye of all of the editors. He simply kept going. He kept going until the end…And Jane, we miss her absolute tenacity and incredible intelligence and steel-trap mind…They have made Indiana better. They made America better."

Standing back at Tom and Jane’s old campsite on Steamboat a few weeks ago, I missed my friends. My friends who made America better. And gave us hope in Wyoming. The spring that Tom and Jane used so many times was still there, as were the same graceful aspens and limber pine, the same bird song in the morning, waking up to warblers and woodpeckers, and the same night calls of great horned owls and poorwills.

Years ago, several Wyoming activists who knew Tom and Jane, started to refer to the springs as "Dustin Springs," much to Jane’s chagrin, and Tom’s bemusement. When I called a federal official about the process of officially naming this unnamed spring after this "historic" Indiana couple, I was somewhat testily told that the figures "must truly be historic." Tom roared with laughter when I told him about my encounter. Regardless of any official naming processes or the validity of their "historic qualities," it will always be Dustin Springs to me and to many others.

Tom and Jane Dustin will be remembered for myriad reasons, including their inspiration of so many involved with the Red Desert protection campaign and efforts to protect other wild lands in throughout America. Whether the issues were Indiana water quality, the protection of national monuments in Utah or a faulty national energy policy, the Dustins were charismatic organizers, rabble rousers and deeply knowledgeable conservation advocates. Nearly everyone who knew them could not help notice their passion, their dedication, their keen intelligence and their unflagging optimism. A goodbye to two desert lions and mentors who fought with uncanny grace and great spirit. We do love you and miss you.