Richard C. Leo died in a car crash driving from Anchorage to Talkeetna the day before Christmas Eve 2013. He moved to Alaska thirty years ago, a land he came to love; married and raised his kids there. Recently he heard of a corporation planning on building the largest dam in North America in the middle of the Denali preserve, the last untrammeled wilderness in the United States. Rick rallied the opposition, wrote articles and gave speeches against it, and pressured the politicians who could do something about it. He won. The dam has been postponed for a year and there’s doubt it will ever be built. Rick was an editor, a writer, and, in the best sense of the word, a rabble-rouser—a latter-day muckraker.
For the editors and writers who may read this: Richard Leo was one of you and attention must be paid.