Blazing Trails Is A Way Of Life -- North Bend Forest Ranger Respects His Roots

RUDY EDWARDS

Age: 43

Job: U.S. Forest Ranger, North Bend Ranger Station, Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

Where he's coming from: Born in rural Mississippi. Marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Corps in Africa . . . and loves to put on jeans and a Pendleton shirt and hike into the national forest.

Philosophy: ``It's important to have knowledge about people culturally. It makes you more aware and sensitive of people. I can go anywhere and feel comfortable while I am there. If you don't have the exposure, it makes you ignorant of why people do things.''

A colleague's view: ``I had never met a black forest ranger before. I started talking to him about some of the things he had done . . . and I said, `This is too natural a mix not to happen.' ''

- Charles Rolland, deputy chief of staff for

Seattle Mayor Norm Rice

Rudy Edwards is not one who has trouble seeing the forest for the trees.

The North Bend-area Forest Service Ranger and local school-board member has a knack for maneuvering in the wilds - the wilds of nature, and of society.

He has hiked the hills of the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. He's canoed the swamps around his hometown of rural Laurel, Miss.

And he blazed civil-rights trails with hundreds of others on the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to protest voting barriers for Southern blacks.

Edwards knows the dangers of stepping into uncharted territory.

He has fought forest fires, monitored storms, cut his way through thick overgrowth.

And he has dodged tear-gas canisters and mobs hurling tomatoes, oranges and racial slurs.

Edwards has seen it all: the sunrise over Ghana, the continental divide in Glacier National Park - and the segregated schools, restrooms, hospitals of his native South.

He knows the ugly side of nature - and of human nature. But he sets his sights on the brighter side. Every wilderness is made up of individual trees. And trees, like people, all have roots.

For Edwards, the key to getting along with people - from children to bigots - is acknowledging their distinct cultural roots.

Culture is considered key

``It's important to have knowledge about people culturally,'' Edwards says. ``It makes you more aware and sensitive of people. I can go anywhere and feel comfortable while I am there. If you don't have the exposure, it makes you ignorant of why people do things.''

As a soil scientist, Edwards knows the botany of roots. But as the native of a rural town, he also knows the importance of putting down cultural, social and spiritual roots. And he understands how to tap into the roots of a community - whether it be Swaziland, where he served for three years as a Peace Corps volunteer, or Snoqualmie or North Bend.

Since arriving in North Bend 18 months ago, Edwards has been elected vice president of the Opstad Elementary School Parent/Teacher/Student Association, appointed to the Snoqualmie Valley School Board and has joined the Snoqualmie Valley Rotary Club and the Snoqualmie United Methodist Church.

He speaks with students about his civil-rights experiences; he encourages Mount Si High School science teachers to use the forest as a laboratory. He is working with the city of North Bend to promote tourism, and with the King County Extension Service to bring inner-city youth to the forest.

Rudy knows roots inside and out.

Racial differences noticed

Race doesn't go unnoticed in the towns of Snoqualmie and North Bend. The Edwards - Rudy and his wife Connie - are one of only a few African-American families, and their daughters Natalie, 14, and Melanie, 9, are two of just 32 African-American children in the 3,600-student school district - a minority of fewer than 1 percent.

Edwards is the first African American to serve as either a U.S. Forest Service ranger or a school-board member in the Snoqualmie Valley.

Soon after the Edwards family arrived in town, a racial incident flared between an African-American student and the football coach at Mount Si High School. Six weeks later, a Mount Si high school basketball player tossed a racial slur at a Renton player on the court. These were among the factors that prompted Edwards to seek the school-board appointment, and to offer to speak to students about African-American history.

Edwards is a stocky man, though anyone, standing beneath the towering Douglas fir trees behind the U.S. Ranger Station in North Bend, would seem short. But his stature changes with his environment, his ideals reaching skyward when he speaks to gymnasiums full of students about civil rights.

Colleagues say Edwards is warm, yet professional, as comfortable in a navy-blue suit as in blue jeans. One of the traits his school-board and forest-service colleagues appreciate about him is the way he approaches racial issues, and the ease with which he bridges potential racial barriers.

``You can ask him, `Rudy, how's the weather,' or you can ask him the question, `Rudy, how does it feel to be black?' and he will answer the question in the same relaxed way,'' said fellow board member Judy Dammarell. ``You can talk to him about anything.''

Students are inquisitive

Students do. During his recent round of talks on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the students wanted to know what Dr. King said to Edwards. If Edwards was hit with police clubs or bitten by dogs. If people called him names. Whether Nelson Mandela is like Martin Luther King.

``What I found living in some of the smaller communities is the kids are pretty open but you have to set the stage for them,'' Edwards said. ``They are a lot more in tune than some people think they are.''

Race is the thing many city slickers first notice about Edwards, especially when they meet him in his rural setting. Most people don't expect to see a black man managing a 200,000-acre forest, said Charles Rolland, a deputy chief of staff for Seattle Mayor Norm Rice. But Rolland also saw Edwards as a valuable resource for inner-city youth.

``I had never met a black forest ranger before,'' Rolland said. ``I started talking to him about some of the things he had done, and his work in Swaziland, and I said, `This is too natural a mix not to happen.' ''

Edwards realizes his unique role as a model for African-American youth who may have considered a forestry career off-limits. The same thing happened with him. Back when Edwards was in ninth grade, an African American U.S. agricultural extension agent visiting his school steered Edwards toward his career in natural science.

Edwards was the first of five children for Rudolph V. Edwards, Sr., and the late Lucille Edwards. His father worked for the Masonite Corporation, and was a labor organizer in what was then a harsh climate for labor.

But Edwards also grew up with cows, pigs, corn and cotton on his grandfather's farm in Laurel, 100 miles southeast of Jackson, Miss, where he developed his love of outdoors.

Edwards' schools were segregated, and his role models were Laurel's black professionals: doctors, lawyers, teachers, pilots, scientists. He earned his bachelor's degree in biology in 1969 from Jackson State University, and his master's in soil science at Tuskegee Institute after returning from the Peace Corps.

In 1975, the Edwards piled their belongings in a U-Haul trailer and drove to the Umpqua National Forest in Roseburg, Ore., where he landed a job as a soil scientist. Edwards moved on to manage the Willamette National Forest watershed in Eugene, Ore., in 1987, remaining two years before landing his first U.S. Forest Ranger job at North Bend.

Ranger oversees 35 employees

The North Bend Ranger Station is a blue-gray rambler on the edge of town. The station map says you are here: 30 miles and another environment from Seattle. Edwards oversees 35 permanent employees and 85 to 95 seasonal summer workers.

The forest is on the edge of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, and encompasses parts of Tacoma's Green River watershed, and the Cedar River and Tolt River watersheds, the ultimate source of water for the city of Seattle. Rolland met Edwards last summer during negotiations between Seattle and the forest service over protecting spotted-owl habitat from logging.

Both sides agreed to trade city of Seattle second-growth timber for the forest-service timber that contained a spotted-owl habitat. It was a diplomatic coup, and Mayor Rice's deputy chief of staff Tom Tierney lauded the session as heralding a new spirit of cooperation between Seattle and the U.S. Forest Service.

Edwards, who was part of the Forest Service team during those talks, wields diplomacy like a sharp ax slashing through a Douglas fir. He makes a clean cut to the meat of the issue, and tries to peel away the layers so that everybody gets a fair shake. It's a sharpness he can deftly adjust to the situation, from high level land-use deals, to fielding first graders' questions about racism. It stems from finding common roots, and seeing the forest through all the different kinds of trees.

``Education for me is the key to accomplishing anything,'' Edwards says. ``For me to be here and not be giving this kind of experience, I wouldn't be doing my job.''