Anne Goddard Charter ’35 has been honored with the 2002 Wells College Alumnae Award for her efforts in promoting legal measures to control environmentally destructive open pit coal mining and the unchecked development of noxious power plants in the Western and Northern Plains states. She has received the award in a ceremony held during Reunion on Saturday morning in Phipps Auditorium. 

Anne’s decades-long involvement in community organizing work resulted in federal and state legislation which reversed inequitable eminent domain laws, established proper land recla-mation procedures in the wake of strip mining, and returned coal tax monies to energy research and land conservation. Her community work continues today in the never-ending struggle for enforcement of those laws. 

In the 1940s, Anne and her husband Boyd settled in south central Montana. Living rustically, they raised four children in a simple ranch home that remained without electricity until the late 1950s.  Although from a comfort-able background, Anne was not afraid to roll up her sleeves and become a true rancher. She helped calve in the spring, feed cattle in winter, assist with cattle branding, and long cattle drives. Anne and Boyd found, though, that they faced more than the vicissitudes of nature with their chosen livelihood. Underneath some 250,000 square miles of Wyoming, Montana, and North and South Dakota lands are 40% of the country’s coal reserves. Although ranchers like the Charters owned their ranch properties, the government held eminent domain rights to the underlying minerals. In concert with large oil and coal companies, the federal government began appropriating land and hastening the unregulated develop-ment of these non-renewable fossil fuel energy sources. At stake was not only the way of life of hearty individuals like the Charters, but the ecological integrity of the earth, air, and water in vast pristine areas of this country. 

Anne and Boyd realized the dangers facing them and called their neighbors together to oppose the massive energy development plans of the government and coal and oil conglomerates. What began as a small gathering of ranchers in the Charter’s living room eventually became the local Bull Mountain Landowners’ Association, then the Northern Plains Resource Council, a state-wide affiliation of resistance groups, and finally, joining with others in six neighboring states, the Western Organization of Resource Councils. 

Spirited and erudite, Anne has often been a spokesperson for these groups. She fought at every level of government, from local to national, to create new laws for environmentally healthy resource use. The federal Surface Mining and Reclamation Act, which Anne fought for every step of the way, was passed three times by Congress, vetoed by Presidents Nixon and Ford, then finally signed into law by President Carter in 1977. 

In her later years, Anne authored an autobiography, Cowboys Don’t Walk: A Tale of Two, proceeds from the sale of which are donated to Wells College and the Western Organization of Resource Councils. The book is a beautifully written story of our country’s wide open spaces, the hard fought efforts to preserve them, and the courage of this adventurous Wells alumna. Anne Goddard Charter is a pioneer for her time and a model for all community-minded women.