[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 16096]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                TRIBUTE TO LAURANCE SPELMAN ROCKEFELLER

 Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I wish to recognize a great 
American, a true Vermonter and a good friend who passed away on July 
11th. That friend is Laurance Spelman Rockefeller.
  Thirty-five years ago, Mr. Rockefeller received the highest honor 
that our country can bestow upon a civilian when President Johnson 
awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his philanthropic and 
conservation efforts. That award did not culminate a lifetime of 
accomplishment, but rather served as a milestone for the beginning of 
another three-and-a-half decades of benevolent contributions by Mr. 
Rockefeller. In 1991, Laurance Rockefeller was again honored with the 
Congressional Gold Medal awarded by President George H.W. Bush.
  Laurance Rockefeller was instrumental in establishing the Virgin 
Islands National Park and donated land for, or helped with the 
acquisition of 11 other national parks, national battlefields and 
national monuments.
  In 1958 Mr. Rockefeller chaired the Outdoor Recreation Resources 
Review Commission. The Commission's landmark report led to creation of 
our national system of wilderness areas, wild and scenic rivers, and 
Federally protected trails.
  I knew Laurance Rockefeller and his wife, Mary French Rockefeller, as 
residents of and benefactors to the town of Woodstock, VT. Laurance and 
Mary Rockefeller preserved the character of Woodstock, as an historic 
village surrounded by rolling hills and farms, while also building its 
economic vitality. The Rockefellers built the Woodstock Inn and Suicide 
Six ski area into successful economic engines for the area, and 
established the Billings Farm and Museum. Conservation easements were 
also secured on surrounding lands to help protect the village from 
sprawl.
  These projects were all undertaken with a careful eye towards 
sustainability. The businesses are viable enterprises and the nonprofit 
entities are generously endowed and tended to by the Woodstock 
Foundation, also created by the Rockefellers.
  Mr. Rockefeller was a quiet and unassuming man who sought no personal 
recognition for his work in Woodstock and truly loved the small 
villages and agricultural landscape of rural Vermont.
  The crown jewel of the Rockefellers' contributions to Woodstock and 
to the Nation is the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical 
Park, encompassing the buildings and grounds of their family estate, 
which they donated to the United States. As the only national park 
dedicated to the history and future of conservation thought and 
practice, the park is a fitting legacy for a man known as America's 
leading conservationist.
  Laurance will be sorely missed by all those who knew him and by those 
who have been able to enjoy the fruits of his conservation 
efforts.

                          ____________________