UI to Receive Gift of Valley County Forestland for Experimental Forest Education Programs
Tuesday, July 12 2005
July 12, 2005 MOSCOW, Idaho – Valley County residents Dr. Herald and Donna Nokes are presenting their alma mater, the University of Idaho, with a gift of approximately 1,650 acres of prime, undeveloped forestland near McCall. The UI College of Natural Resources will manage the property as part of its Experimental Forest program. The land is being covered by a conservation easement granted to the Idaho Department of Lands to prohibit development, and is valued at approximately $10 million. It is believed to be the largest gift of real estate, both in value and acreage, made to the university. “I want to thank Herald and Donna for their wonderful generosity to the University of Idaho,” said UI President Tim White. “One of the university’s strategic academic themes is stewarding the environment to sustain Idaho’s natural resources that contribute to our quality of life and natural resources-based industries. This gift significantly expands our ability to address those issues, which are of great importance to all Idahoans.” Management and use of the property will pass to the university at the termination of the life estate retained by the Nokes. Until then, the Nokes will continue to manage the property. Thereafter, the forestland will be managed by the College of Natural Resources as the Herald Nokes Family Experimental Forest. Income generated by the property will be used to pay for operation and maintenance of the property. Any remaining income will be used to support scholarships for CNR students through the Herald Nokes Family Forestry Scholarship Endowment and to support excellence in teaching, research and outreach in the college. “This gift is so encompassing; it supports students, faculty, programs and outreach efforts in the College of Natural Resources,” said Steven Daley Laursen, dean of the college. “The Nokes’ vision for the future of the university and the state is equal to their generosity. We all will benefit for generations to come from their support.” The Nokes are both UI alumni. Herald received a bachelor’s degree in range management in 1950 and then earned a medical degree from the University of Oregon. He was a family physician in McCall until his retirement. His career was in medicine, but his avocation was forestry, and he continues to manage the property as the Nokes Tree Farm. Herald and Donna have three grown daughters. The College of Natural Resources currently operates an 8,000-acre Experimental Forest northeast of Moscow. It is a multiple-use, working forest that provides UI students with a field laboratory in which they can observe and practice what they have learned in the classroom. Faculty and students use the forest for wide-ranging research projects, and it serves as a demonstration area for current forest management techniques. The forest is typical of the drier mountains of northern Idaho, with grand fir and Douglas-fir as the most common tree species. “The Herald Nokes Family Experimental Forest will provide our students and faculty an important environment in which to work and study,” said Daley Laursen. “The McCall area represents a typical central Idaho forest environment; it includes species such as ponderosa and lodgepole pine, Engelmann spruce, western larch and aspen, as well as Douglas-fir and grand fir.” The gift property has varying characteristics, with frontage on Little Payette Lake and Lake Fork Creek, meadows and ridges. Daley Laursen said the expanded experimental forest will benefit a number of college degree programs in addition to forest resources and forest products. The central Idaho facility also will enhance programs in ecology and conservation biology, resource recreation and tourism, wildlife resources, environmental science education, fire ecology and restoration ecology. CONTACT: University Communications, (208) 885-6291, uinews@uidaho.edu -30- jo--7/12/05--CNR/ADM
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