Nancy Debevoise is feisty. She says she’s been fired from nearly every regular job she’s ever had because she wasn’t willing to keep her mouth shut. That’s what has made her such an effective environmental advocate, and the reason the Wyoming Outdoor Council will miss her now that she’s stepped down from the board.

From the time she was a young girl Nancy loved animals and the outdoors. Her childhood bedroom was full of cages and aquariums for snakes and hamsters, turtles and fish. Kids would bring injured animals to school for her to nurse back to health. Even then, she had a soft spot for underdogs.

“My sister used to call me the Queen of Hopeless Causes,” Nancy says.

These hopeless causes shifted as Nancy moved into the professional workplace. As a freelance writer and editor in Washington D.C., she worked primarily with environmental organizations and civil and women’s rights groups—not exactly hopeless causes, but certainly underdogs. Nancy liked the challenge and she was good at what she did. Nancy, who grew up in Pennsylvania, was entrenched in the East in those days and spent her vacations in Europe and the Caribbean. In 1980, amazed that she had never been out West, a friend took Nancy camping in the northern Rockies. She fell in love.

“I wondered where I’d been all my life,” Nancy recalls. “I began doing travel writing to pay for my increasingly lengthy trips West. Back in Washington, I pined noisily for Wyoming. My friends finally said, ‘shut up or move.’ So I moved to Dubois in 1993.”

Always an activist, Nancy started looking for a cause. She got involved in a land-use planning effort in Dubois that resulted in threats against her pets, vehicles, even a veiled threat against her life. But that only made her more determined. She met Meredith Taylor, who was then working for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, and asked her to name the most effective environmental group in the state. Meredith said it was the Wyoming Outdoor Council, and Nancy found her niche.

Nancy has been integral to the Wyoming Outdoor Council in a variety of ways. She revamped and edited Frontline for seven years, transforming it into a professional newsletter before passing it on. She worked on direct-mail pieces and was influential in fundraising. Nancy also served on the board of directors for seven years, including one year as vice-president and two as president. In total, she worked tirelessly for the Outdoor Council for more than 10 years. We weren’t her only cause, however. She also served on the boards of the National Bighorn Sheep Center, the Wyoming Wildlife Federation and the Predator Conservation Alliance.

Finally, this summer, the fight began to get to Nancy.

“I realized that all this environmental work was making me anxious and very frustrated,” she says. “I needed a break. After 30 years of involvement in controversial issues, I needed to make the transition to more apple-pie positive things.”

In early September, the Wyoming Outdoor Council's board and staff gathered at the Trail Lake Ranch near Dubois for strategic planning. Pictured, front row (l-r) Mary Jones, Meredith Taylor, Michele Barlow, Scott Kane, Lisa McGee, Sandy Shuptrine, Bruce Pendery, Susan Lasher. Back row: Mark Preiss, Terry Rasmussen, Joyce Evans, Jim States, Barbara Parsons, Anthony Stevens (behind), Tom Bell, Barbara Oakleaf, Andy Blair (behind), Tova Woyciechowicz, Molly Absolon, Steve Jones.

Not that apple-pie positive things means inactivity. Nancy is proud of her expansive perennial gardens and even in late August they were aflame with color. She’s helping the Lander Art Center with its newsletter and fundraising. She has joined the Big Sisters program. And she’s taken up painting.

In classic Nancy style, she started by trying to teach herself how to paint watercolors and acrylics. Finally, frustrated with her lack of progress, she took several painting classes offered by the Lander Art Center and the Lander Artists’ Guild. Now she and a friend regularly go out plein air painting together.

“I’m not as frustrated and furious now that I’m engaged in more peaceful pursuits,” Nancy says. “But I do want to stay involved. I really care about WOC.”

The Wyoming Outdoor Council thanks Nancy for her years of tireless dedication and hopes that she means it when she says she’ll stay involved.