Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, Wisconsin

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Interpretation is Fun!!

Notes from the Field

The "Mosquito Museum"

What kind of interpretive exhibit really gives you a buzz? How about a museum on mosquitoes?! Since I spent much of 2024 and part of 2025 developing text for the new Disease Vector Education Center (aka The Mosquito Museum) in St. Augustine, FL, I can guarantee that you’ll have a great time!

The center introduces visitors to the world’s tiniest, deadliest, peskiest insects and other arthropods that help and/or hinder human life on earth. You can play detective to identify mosquito-borne diseases, use digital microscopes, feed mosquito larvae to hungry mosquitofish, and climb into a real helicopter for a simulated coastline spraying mission. Our team worked hard to make this unusual science museum a must-see stop. Click here to see a great review in The Washington Post.

Mary Lou Williams: Jazz Legend

Last fall a local musician called me for a small but very cool project in my own backyard: A wayside sign about jazz great Mary Lou Williams, who was born in the intown Atlanta community of Edgewood. I’m happy to report that on May 3, 2025, we celebrated the installation of this interpretive wayside in Edgewood Garden, about a block from Mary Lou’s home. To learn more about this great keyboardist who arranged music and played with Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, Dizzie Gillespie, and more, click here. A celebration of the life and music of Atlanta’s Mary Lou Williams - ARTS ATL

Washington Monument Repairs

When's the last time you looked out over Washington, D.C., from the top of the Washington Monument? Try it again soon! Luckily for me, the elevators were operating again when I worked on new exhibits for this iconic landmark after an earthquake damaged the structure in 2014. (No, I did NOT dangle from one of those ropes! Definitely not in my skill set...)

Nature's Navigators

Every time I work on interpretive panels for another National Wildlife Refuge, I am astonished – again! – by the incredible journeys made by millions of birds every year. From Bosque del Apache in New Mexico to Hollings ACE Basin in coastal South Carolina, these refuges along the North American flyways are annual R&R stops for all sorts of migratory waterfowl. Amazing!

Traveling El Camino Real

Thanks to funding from the FHWA National Scenic Byways program, we have a great assignment this fall: creating interpretive signs for a section of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail in Santa Fe, NM.

Atlanta: City in a Forest

How does a fast-growing city keep its trees? Just ask Trees Atlanta – a non-profit dedicated to protecting existing trees and planting new ones throughout metro ATL. I wrote the text, and my daughter, Allie, did the graphic design. Since Trees Atlanta wanted to use recyclable materials, we chose locally produced aluminum signs. Long live the urban forest!

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[Reader rails and flat panels within mini-diorama]

Wet, Dry and Wet Again

About half of Necedah National Wildlife Refuge is ALL WET, at least part of the year. The word “wetlands” is a catch-all term that includes shallow lakes, marshes with low-growing plant, and swampy areas with trees.

Depending on the needs of the wildlife here, Refuge managers may use run-off canals and small dams to raise or lower water levels in certain lakes and marshes.

Who Needs Wetlands?

Birds love—and need—the watery world of Necedah. Thousands of birds across the Western Hemisphere depend on this Refuge as a resting and feeding stopover on their long yearly migrations.

Every spring and fall, waterfowl, songbirds, and raptors rest and feed here before continuing their incredible journeys. Their destinations? Winter habitats in Central and South America, and summer breeding grounds in the U.S. and Canada.