Updated: October 22, 2009

The Chronicle > News

Hudson River champion to speak at Rudy Vallet dinner

Robert Boyle

Published: October 22, 2009
goshen — Robert H. Boyle, founder of the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association, will be guest speaker at the Stewart Park and Reserve Coalition’s fifth annual Rudy Vallet Memorial Dinner, to be held at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 30, at the Colden Manor at Spruce Lodge, Route 17K, Coldenham.

The dinner honors the memory of Rudy Vallet of Goshen, a biology teacher at the Chester Junior/Senior High School, a community activist, and a conservationist who served for years as the Coalition’s vice president and secretary to the Orange County Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs.

Boyle is a fly fisherman and outdoors writer for Sports Illustrated. He has proven that an individual can confront power and money and win. In the late 1950s he discovered the PCB contamination of striped bass in the Hudson River, and then founded the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association to hunt down river polluters. Boyle hired John Cronin to become Riverkeeper.

His organization joined with Scenic Hudson to defeat Con Edison’s power plant project on Storm King Mountain, a 17-year fight capped by victory in 1981.

Meanwhile, Boyle produced books on fly fishing, the environment, and the Hudson River. His defining volume “The Hudson River: A Natural and Unnatural History,” published in 1969, is now being extensively revised and expanded.

In November 1987, the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association officially endorsed and supported the Stewart Park and Reserve Coalition.

Environmental awards

The Coalition will at the dinner honor three people and two organizations with environmental awards.

Susan Mischo has been a board member of the Coalition, giving years of loyal volunteer service since 1997. Jeff Montanye, with considerable research and personal knowledge of the forest, has produced a book about Stewart bike trails. DEC Forester George Profous, “in the field” at Stewart for years, has rare knowledge and love for these lands.

The two organizations are the Orange County Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, which has supported the fight to save the lands since the Coalition’s beginnings in 1987, and the New Windsor Concerned Citizens, which the Coalition says is the only group to deal with environmental and other town issues in recent memory, and has long supported the preservation of Stewart lands.

Reservations are required because seating is limited. Tickets are $45 per person and include a buffet dinner. There will be a cash bar and silent auction. For reservations or more information call 564-3018 or e-mail sparc@frontiernet.net.