Remembering Dawn Meyer
Monday, February 1, 2021
Remembering Dawn Meyer – by Mike Wyrick, President, Webster Lake Conservation Association
On December 17, 2020, Dawn Meyer, a long-tenured member of the Webster Lake Conservation Association (WLCA) Board of Directors passed on to her eternal heavenly life. Dawn was a great friend, an even greater environmentalist, and an advocate for Webster and Backwater Lakes and the Town of North Webster.
She studied and recorded everything from the clarity of the water to the kinds and types of bacteria, algae, mussels, fishes, and weeds that live in it. She noted the changes in the environment and their effects on the lakes and their aquatic populations. She also noted how human actions, or lack of action, affected the water quality in our lakes.
To that end, Dawn was the instigator of several diagnostic, stormwater filtration, and engineering feasibility studies completed on and for Webster and Backwater Lakes with cost sharing through the Indiana Lakes and Rivers Enhancement (LARE) program administered by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. These studies all had a positive impact on the water quality on Webster and Backwater.
Little lady that she was, she still helped the men remove the tree limbs and logs from the millrace spillway at the Webster dam. She was instrumental in initiating at least one channel dredging project. She had no problem in speaking truth to power when it came to moving drainage projects or erosion prevention projects forward.
Dawn served WLCA as its historian for the lake area. She also served on the Board of Directors for The Watershed Foundation and, in that capacity, assisted students with transportation and instruction in their water quality sampling activities.
Dawn’s late husband, Don, monitored the Webster Lake Dam for many years on behalf of WLCA and the residents of Webster and Backwater Lakes. Dawn was right there helping him. As one of our past board members recently stated, “Don and Dawn are reunited now, gazing down upon us and still fussing about the lake.”
