During her four decades of service to the City of Grand Prairie, 87 year-old Ruthe Jackson consistently champions environmental education and conservation. This commitment earned her the Texas Environmental Excellence Award, the state's highest environmental honor. Jackson is one of 12 winners statewide to be recognized with an award, presented by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on April 30 in Austin at its annual banquet.

For the past 22 years, Jackson served on the city council and has used her position to advocate for a wide range of environmental projects including a curbside recycling program in 2000. She founded the Grand Prairie chapter of Keep Texas Beautiful, which won a 2006 Governor's Community Achievement Award. Jackson is also the first woman in Texas to receive the National Lady Bird Johnson award in 1977 for her long-standing dedication to the Grand Prairie park system.

Jackson focused on Grand Prairie's youth by sponsoring programs for the area's Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops. She is the namesake of Keep Texas Beautiful's Ruthe Jackson Youth Leadership Award, given annually to students who exhibit environmental excellence. She was instrumental in establishing the Green and Clean Campus program at all 37 Grand Prairie schools, serving 20,000 students.

One of Jackson's most telling examples of advocacy is illustrated by her work on the Tree City USA initiative that plants 1,200 trees in Grand Prairie each year. In an effort to build on the success of the program, she worked with the Texas Forest Service to uproot 254 saplings from the LBJ ranch and mailed them to each county judge in Texas, urging them to plant the sapling and join the cause.

Jackson personifies the difference one person can make. Her continuous work over 40 years has literally changed the face of Grand Prairie.

The TCEQ annually presents the Texas Environmental Excellence Awards to environmental projects across the state that demonstrate excellence in resource conservation, waste reduction and pollution prevention. The award-winning programs reflect the goals of the TCEQ: to protect Texas human and natural resources and ensure clean air, clean water and the safe management of waste. For more information, or to submit an application for next year's awards, visit www.teea.org.