Steve Phenicie Presented with Georgia Audubon's Scottie Johnson Spirit Award

Jared Teutsch, Georgia Audubon Executive Director, and Steve Phenicie, recipient of the 2021 Scottie Johnson Spirit Award. Photo by Dottie Head.

Georgia Audubon was delighted to present long-time volunteer Steve Phenicie with the 2021 Scottie Johnson Spirit Award at the Holiday Party and Annual Meeting on Sunday, December 5. 
 
Steve has been a behind-the-scenes volunteer for Georgia Audubon for many years. A prolific writer, he retired from the Atlanta Journal Constitution and now appears in each issue of Wingbars, on our blog, and at many of our habitat restoration work days. We’re not sure exactly how long he has been writing for us, but we know he’s pushing at least a decade.
 
Steve takes great delight in submitting well thought out, well-written articles for each issue of Wingbars. To date, he has written 52 Volunteer/Staff profiles and compiles the A Million Thanks column for each issue. Over the years, he has also submitted a number of Tongue in Cheek Humor articles for Wingbars, many of which have been featured on this blog site.  Steve is also a frequent volunteer at our Habitat Restoration workdays. He's one of those worker bee volunteers who does an incredible amount of work for the organization that is rarely recognized. 

About the Scottie Johnson Spirit Award

In 2018, Georgia Audubon lost an incredibly dedicated volunteer and dear friend,  Eleanor Scott Johnson. "Scottie", as her family and friends called her, was an avid birder and long-time volunteer for Georgia Audubon. There wasn’t a task that Scottie wasn’t up for, whether that was giving educational presentations, walking a Project Safe Flight route, certifying wildlife sanctuaries, or writing the Ask Chippy column. Scottie always raised her hand to help us out. She was a nurse, a mother, a Master Birder, and a wonderful human being with an amazing spirit. Although we lost Scottie to cancer in 2018, we continue to celebrate her spirit, kindness, and perseverance annually by honoring an outstanding volunteer with the Scottie Johnson Spirit Award. Anne McCallum, a long-time volunteer with Georgia Audubon received the inaugural award in 2019, and Charles Loeb was our 2020 recipient.

Georgia Audubon commissioned a watercolor painting of a Red-headed Woodpecker by Amanda Woomer, Georgia Audubon Board Member, to present to Steve in recognition of his service to Georgia Audubon.

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