DISCUSSION — Aaron Dodds, projects director for the Jefferson Soil and Water District, discusses the local hellbender initiative during the National Association of Conservation Districts convention. -- Contributed

STEUBENVILLE — The Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District was invited to share the story of its hellbender initiative with a national audience last week at the National Association of Conservation Districts 80th-annual meeting in San Antonio.

The theme of the meeting was Deep Roots. Bold Horizons.

The district’s hour-long presentation, Hellbent on Expanding Conservation to a New Audience and Generation, focused on “how hellbenders have afforded us an invaluable opportunity to bring conservation education to a wider audience, while also creating quality of life improvements for Jefferson County,” said Aaron Dodds, conservation district projects director.

The discussion highlighted how people became more aware of hellbenders and became better stewards of the watersheds, he said.

“It also touched on how Indian Creek High School embraced the concept and Jefferson Soil and Water helped get hellbenders for them to not only become the first and only high school in the world raising (them), but also led Indian Creek to develop a strong environmental program that is setting the students up for careers in the future,” he added.

Dodds said he also discussed Hellbender Preserve “and how it has brought so many people to the county and exposed them to the beauty of nature, and how the young children who are experiencing Hellbender Preserve will grow up with an entirely new perspective on Jefferson County where the focus will be on the beauty and grandeur of the county.”

“I also discussed how JSWCD has taken the model to leverage the development of the preserves of Jefferson County, which include Hellbender Preserve, Quaker Ridge Preserve, Piney Fork Trail and Preserve and Rush Run Wetlands Preserve, and how our goal is to create opportunities for conservation, education, recreation, and historic preservation and give places for the public to enjoy.”

Dodds said afterward it “was a great experience.”

“Having the opportunity to speak on how Jefferson County has embraced the conservation of hellbenders and how we have been able to leverage them to bring improvements to the watershed and bring quality of life opportunities was great,” he said. “The presentation had a very large attendance and people from all over the nation were excited to learn about what we have done in Jefferson County. People from Alaska to Florida and New Jersey to Oregon asked questions and were impressed at how we were able to integrate conservation with quality-of-life improvements.”