Janet Bean-Dochnahl: 2017 Stewardship Award Winner

Story by Caitlyn Avey of Madisonian News

Sharing the importance of land education with our youth

Janet Dochnahl has been in the Madison Valley for 38 years after moving to the area from Idaho with her husband to pursue work with the United States Forest Service. After retiring from a career in range management and planning for the Madison Ranger District, Janet turned her enthusiasm for the land into and educational experience for students.

In 2009, Janet helped to found Madison Farm to Fork as a way to promote local agriculture and sustainability and through the program, helped introduce a farm to school initiative, GROWW, in 2010.

GROWW, which stands for Gardening, Resources, Outdoors, Watershed and Wildlife, is a way for students to learn about the world first hand through outdoor education classes, field trips and outdoor camps by immersing them in gardens, engaging with local ranchers and producers and exploring streams, rivers and mountains.

“The root of it is so they understand and appreciate where they live so they can grow to be stewards of the land,” said Janet about why GROWW exists.

Janet got her excitement and enthusiasm about outdoor education and conservation from her mother who, at a young age, helped her start her own seeds to be planted in the garden.

“I was hooked the moment she said to me ‘you really have a green thumb’,” Janet said of her mother. “I learned to garden with her as we moved place to place and had to learn about different climates and soils and pests.”

Janet grew up in national parks as her dad worked for the National Park Service, living in places and climates like New Mexico to Virginia to Nebraska, and has seen the benefits of land conservation over the past 50 years.

“Conservation is relevant to me because I’ve seen what can happen,” she said. “It’s important to live in recognition of what the environment requires to be sustainable. The Madison Valley is a special place and it’s easy to love it to death.”

After studying natural resource management in college, Janet said she realized how closely tied the principals she learned from gardening were to those of conservation and how much you can learn from just trying to grow food.

“That’s what’s so cool about the GROWW Program,” she said. “Teach the kids to grow a plant in their garden and they learn about soils, weather, watersheds, wildlife and so much more – and, they love to eat what they grow!”

Janet also said she feels lucky to live in a community with so many organizations and groups dedicated to preserving the land, that share her enthusiasm for education.

“It’s important to educate the youth about all of the work our ranchers and conservation groups do,” she said. “It’s just another piece of the puzzle.”

Janet said she is proud to be the recipient of the stewardship award and is happy to serve as the face for her team.

“I’m just one member of a team and I couldn’t do this without them,” she said.

Sunni Heikes-Knapton with the Madison Conservation District reiterated Janet’s involvement in cooperative projects both throughout her professional and personal life, adding how all-around Janet is in her conservation practices.

“She’s so well rounded in what she had brought to our area,” Heikes-Knapton said. “Interest in a healthy landscape often come from those who have an active hand in it and people like Janet are such a nice complement to the practice of caring for the land.”