JOHN BLAIR IS A 2024 “HOOSIER RESILIENCE” HERO
AUGUST 18, 2024
EVANSVILLE—A 1978 Pulitzer Prize winner for news photography, John Blair leveraged the award to draw attention to southwestern Indiana’s nascent environmental community as well as the monthly newspaper he published in the early 1980s, the Ohio Valley Environment.
Blair founded Valley Watch, an Evansville-based environmental health advocacy organization, and has been president since 1984. From 1988 to 1990, he was a director of the Hoosier Environmental Council, Indiana’s largest environmental advocacy organization, and served as its president. In the early 2000s, Blair served on the executive committee and as energy chair of the Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter.
Locally, Blair is credited with keeping large-scale polluters out of Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois. He attracted media attention in 1985 when he attempted to “steal” the groundbreaking shovels of a hazardous waste facility in Henderson, Ky. Most recently, Blair, Valley Watch, and Southwest Indiana Citizens for Quality of Life, another organization Blair helped form, fought to keep a proposed coal-to-diesel plant from being built in Dale, Ind. Blair has almost always worked as a volunteer, as have all Valley Watch contributors.
John Blair has been a valuable member of both the Evansville community and the State of Indiana and the nation. He has improved he lives of countless citizens. Many thanks, John!
Randy Shepard, Indianapolis
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