Auricauricle
07-27-2010, 12:26 PM
Edwin Gardner
<!-- Edwin Gardner -->http://mi-cache.legacy.com/legacy/images/Cobrands/Charleston/Photos/Image-47788_203028.jpg Edwin Gardner CHARLESTON - Edwin Gardner, 64, a devoted father and husband who worked as a writer, teacher, dolphin trainer, community advocate, and planner for his native state of Tennessee, died Friday, July 23, from injuries sustained when his bicycle and an SUV collided. Edwin Sumner Gardner V was born in Nashville, Tenn., on Sept. 19, 1945, to Edwin Sumner Gardner IV and Grace Olive Daniel Gardner. His father was the longtime treasurer of Vanderbilt University. He attended Phillips Academy, Andover, and then the University of the South, Sewanee, and Vanderbilt, where he studied with the Fugitive Poets and Southern Agrarians. He placed a short story in the Sewannee Review, edited by the Agrarian writer Andrew Lytle. After teaching high school English in Washington, D.C., he started an educational program at the Dolphin Research Center in Marathon, Fla., and moved to Charleston in 1992, where he was the first development director for the South Carolina Aquarium. Gardner was involved with the Outward Bound program in its early development in America, and was an accomplished kayaker at a time when the most common way to acquire a kayak was to build one. In 1995, Gardner founded the New Charleston Mosquito Fleet to reconnect inner city children with Charleston's history of boat building and boating. He was president of the Harleston Village Neighborhood Association and a leader on the transportation subcommittee of the Peninsula Task Force. As founder of the Heritage Strategy Group, he wrote plans for recreational areas and scenic byways, balancing conservation and business interests. He was the primary author of the Tennessee 2020 Vision for Parks and Landscape that is the state's principal park planning document. Survivors include his wife, Whitney Powers, daughter Olive Kesler Powers Gardner, sisters Gretchen Gardner of Ann Arbor, Mich., and Patricia Campbell of Nashville.
This is one of my wife's and my oldest friends. I include this post to memorialize his passing and to remind each one of us of the gift and fragility of life. All too often, it is unsung heroes like Ed who somehow do what they do with dignity and silence.
Next time you see a bicyclist on the road and consider your next move, remember he is much more vulnerable than you. Share the road fairly, and be careful. You may not be killed, but your life will be forever changed if things go wrong.
<!-- Edwin Gardner -->http://mi-cache.legacy.com/legacy/images/Cobrands/Charleston/Photos/Image-47788_203028.jpg Edwin Gardner CHARLESTON - Edwin Gardner, 64, a devoted father and husband who worked as a writer, teacher, dolphin trainer, community advocate, and planner for his native state of Tennessee, died Friday, July 23, from injuries sustained when his bicycle and an SUV collided. Edwin Sumner Gardner V was born in Nashville, Tenn., on Sept. 19, 1945, to Edwin Sumner Gardner IV and Grace Olive Daniel Gardner. His father was the longtime treasurer of Vanderbilt University. He attended Phillips Academy, Andover, and then the University of the South, Sewanee, and Vanderbilt, where he studied with the Fugitive Poets and Southern Agrarians. He placed a short story in the Sewannee Review, edited by the Agrarian writer Andrew Lytle. After teaching high school English in Washington, D.C., he started an educational program at the Dolphin Research Center in Marathon, Fla., and moved to Charleston in 1992, where he was the first development director for the South Carolina Aquarium. Gardner was involved with the Outward Bound program in its early development in America, and was an accomplished kayaker at a time when the most common way to acquire a kayak was to build one. In 1995, Gardner founded the New Charleston Mosquito Fleet to reconnect inner city children with Charleston's history of boat building and boating. He was president of the Harleston Village Neighborhood Association and a leader on the transportation subcommittee of the Peninsula Task Force. As founder of the Heritage Strategy Group, he wrote plans for recreational areas and scenic byways, balancing conservation and business interests. He was the primary author of the Tennessee 2020 Vision for Parks and Landscape that is the state's principal park planning document. Survivors include his wife, Whitney Powers, daughter Olive Kesler Powers Gardner, sisters Gretchen Gardner of Ann Arbor, Mich., and Patricia Campbell of Nashville.
This is one of my wife's and my oldest friends. I include this post to memorialize his passing and to remind each one of us of the gift and fragility of life. All too often, it is unsung heroes like Ed who somehow do what they do with dignity and silence.
Next time you see a bicyclist on the road and consider your next move, remember he is much more vulnerable than you. Share the road fairly, and be careful. You may not be killed, but your life will be forever changed if things go wrong.