Fern to be honored with tea tree

Paul Clinton

A group of old-guard environmentalists will honor one of their own

Saturday during a ceremony at a local park.

Fern Pirkle, who lives in Corona del Mar, said she is honored to

be receiving the annual achievement award from Stop Polluting Our

Newport.

The group gives out the award each summer to honor the community

member “whose accomplishments in promoting environmental awareness

have distinguished” them.

“She has been a good citizen and a leader,” said Allan Beek, a

prominent local activist who sits on the group’s board.

The group will honor the 76-year-old Pirkle at 11 a.m. Saturday at

the Bonita Canyon Sports Park, which is near the intersection of Ford

Road and East Newport Hills Drive.

A Melaleuca tree -- more commonly known as a tea tree -- will be

planted at the park to honor Pirkle’s more than two decades of

environmental activism. The group is giving Pirkle its Frank and

Frances Robinson Environmental Award, chiefly for her role as

talisman of Friends of the Newport Coast.

The award is named for the well-known Newport Beach couple who led

the effort to preserve Upper Newport Bay.

“I’m just really honored,” Pirkle said.

After graduating from UCLA in the 1950s, Pirkle got a job as a

school teacher. While living in Kentucky in the late 1960s, the seeds of her activism were planted. Pirkle served as president of the

League of Women Voters of Louisville and Jefferson County from 1967

to 1970. She was also a founding member of the Kentucky Civil

Liberties Union.

In 1970, she moved to Corona del Mar. . Pirkle served as a vice

president of the Orange Coast League of Women Voters and was a

founding member of the Orange County Transportation District’s

citizens advisory committee.

But her biggest accomplishment, by her own reckoning, came in the

1980s, when she took on the Irvine Co. Pirkle filed two lawsuits

that ultimately forced the Irvine Co. to set aside more than 70 acres

for open space and sell the land for Crystal Cove State Park.

In that way, the planting of a tree is more than appropriate,

since the Robinsons also won the preservation of Upper Newport Bay

through the courts.

“I think it’s potentially interesting and appropriate,” Pirkle

said. “Not many people know about that connection.”

In November, Pirkle’s group announced they were renaming their

group to Friends of the Newport Coast from Friends of the Irvine

Coast.