After 85 years, my Mother recalls her time as a Missouri Nature Knight

I love this time of year as families post their back to school photos and their children anticipate the start of another school year. So, I thought it might be an appropriate time to share a few comments on the impact of an elementary learning activity that still influences my mother after eighty-five years.

The Missouri Conservationist published a couple of references to a Nature Knights program over several issues this spring. One Letter to the Editor from the May 2025 issue caught my mother's attention and triggered memories of her time attending a one room school house. Amazingly, she was able to find a scrapbook she kept as a youngster recording her school activities and it included a pledge card and pin for the Nature Knights program, one of many accomplishments on her path as a lifelong learner that continues today. 

She is also still very proud of her time in the program and recalls how it supported her passion for learning about nature that she developed growing up on a farm in the Loutre River Valley south of Minneola, MO. 

She maintains a subscription to this day for The Missouri Conservationist and reads through each issue before passing them along with notes when she finds a particularly interesting article. She has also over the years made sure to encourage a love of nature by giving various Missouri Conservation Department publications to her own children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. 

 

The Missouri Nature Knights program was aimed at every Missouri boy and girl between the ages of 

six and fifteen. You can read more details about Missouri Nature Knights in "Conservation Commission Sponsors Plan For Young Missourians to Aid Wildlife Program," from the January 1939 issue of The Missouri Conservationist, pp.1, 2 and 7.

The article explains that any elementary student could become a Missouri Nature Knight by signing a pledge card designed by Walt Disney. 

The program included ranks of Squire, Knight and Conservationist, each with unique buttons or badges awarded on completion of activities prescribed by the Conservation Commission. The highest award was the gold medal awarded for outstanding achievement. 

Participants kept their own records of "...self-improvement projects such as bird, tree and animal identification, starting conservation museums and libraries, exploration of brooks and farm lands, winter feeding of birds, planting food patches, building bird houses, making conservation posters, making field trips."

Nature Knights was part of a broader effort by the Conservation Commission to provide cumulative experiences over a number of years to help restore Missouri's natural resources.

Consider leaving a note below if you or someone you know has an experience with the Missouri Nature Knights or a similar program.