On Wednesday, Lynn Peebles and Doug Land were honored in New York City for their longtime support of the Hudson Highlands Nature Museum.
“I’m delighted to be able to honor them,” said museum director Jacqueline Grant. “I think they’re wonderful people. They’ve very much deserving of this honor.”
Peebles and Land got involved with the museum in 1996 when they moved to Cornwall-on-Hudson.
“One of the reasons we were drawn to the community was the mixture of woodlands, river, and fields – the scenic beauty,” Peebles said. “We quickly learned the museum played a key role in the community in making sure the community stayed beautiful through its programs and the fact that the museum’s whole mission is to create thoughtful stewards of the environment. We were drawn to the museum from the very beginning.”
From 1998 to 2011, Peebles served as a museum trustee.
“The museum’s extraordinary growth over the past 10 years can be traced to the work of the Museum Assessment Project (MAP) she led in 2003,” said Grant.
MAP is a program of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal museum support organization.
“It led to the museum’s name change,” Grant said. “It led to an understanding that the museum needed a bit of an overhaul so people would recognize it more as an organization whose mission is to connect people with nature.“
Getting involved with the nature museum prompted Land to get involved with organizations that have similar missions.
Land works with several Hudson Valley conservation organizations and is on the boards of the Orange County Land Trust, Scenic Hudson and the Hudson Highlands Land Trust. Doug is the Founding Chairman of the Corporate Action Network and serves on the Board of the Anti-Defamation League.
“I think a lot of his involvement in those organizations came from the inspiration the museum provided, underlining the importance of protecting this beautiful scenic environment we live in and helping people become more thoughtful about their relationship to the environment,” said Peebles.
The couple now serve on the museum’s advisory board and continue to lend their support. They’ve served as hosts for the annual Acorn Party, held for those members of the Acorn Society who made a commitment to support the museum for three years.
Outside of the museum, the two helped found the Cornwall Community Co-Op, which gave way to the Cornwall Farmers’ Market.
