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Couple honored for land conservation
by Barbara McRae, Editor

Cass and Mary Lou Combs, with Sharon Taylor of the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee, display the award they received as Land Conservationist of the Year, in recognition of their donation of a conservation easement on 18 acres of river property. (Photo by Ralph Preston)

The Land Trust for the Little Tennessee honored Cass and Mary Lou Combs as its Land Conservationists of the Year during the annual fall celebration Saturday.

Sharon Taylor, presenting the award to the Combs, spoke of the importance of the conservation easement they donated to the land trust on their land bordering the Little Tennessee.

Mary Lou Combs is the daughter of Lawrence Liner. Liner acquired the farmland on the river where she grew up during the 1920s. She and her husband settled there in the early 1950s and raised four children on the homeplace.

The celebration took place at the Gibson Bottoms property, which the land trust acquired from a landowner who planned to develop it as an RV park. The land is across the river from the Combs' farm.

Paul Carlson, who emceed the ceremony, called the Combs' donation "an extraordinary decision to protect family land."

Carlson said that the land trust achieved its long-time goal of protecting the Needmore tract in January of last year. After resting from that effort, the organization set a new goal of conserving as much river land as it could. Another 3.5 miles has been preserved since then, the said.

County planner Stacy Guffey spoke emotionally of the importance the Gibson Cove property holds for him. The land once was in his property, and it was "a special place to me... The first place I read Huckleberry Finn was under a willow over there."

Such places, he said "have more value to us as a community than as a commodity."

Jim Moore, owner of Spring Ridge Dairy in the south part of the county, said "Most of us involved in farming or conservation have the feeling that the land is part of us."

He said that he and his wife farmed in south Georgia for a while. When they returned to Macon County and bought the land on 441 south, they talked about how it could be conserved.

After his wife died in an automobile accident, he worked for a way to do that, More said.

The farmland preservation program and the land trust allowed us "without independent wealth" to see that the property would always be a farm.

"We have an area so rich in history", Moore said. "It is a great privilege to do our little part."

Freeman Owle, who serves on the land trust board of directors, told the crowd, "It matters not who lives here. It matters how they live here."

He spoke of being in Atlanta one day when a radio announcement warned it was a Code Orange day and "children must not go out to plan."

"What have we done?" Owle asked. "Most importantly, what must we do?"

The Land Trust for the Little Tennessee helps to conserve and restore the landscape of the Little Tennessee River. Since 1999, the land trust has been a key agent for the protection of more than 5,000 acres, including riverfront lands along nearly one-third of the Little Tennessee. For more information call 524-2711 or see www.ltlt.org.