Founding Board member, Dale F. Jeffers (1944-2024), passed away on October 18, 2024, at his home in Elizabethtown, N.Y., one day shy of his 80th birthday. Dale was a long-time Adirondack Park environmental activist, who loved canoeing and camping, especially on Low’s Lake, who worked to create and build Protect the Adirondacks since its founding in 2009. Ten years ago, Dale moved to a cabin outside of Elizabethtown, where he enjoyed living in the woods with his dogs and cats. The pictures in this remembrance are Dale’s from Low’s Lake.
For many years, Dale served as a Board member of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, when the organization was based in Niskayuna. He served for many years on the Conservation Committee of the Adirondack Mountain Club. He was a vocal member of just about every environmental group in New York. Dale was especially fond of weekend canoe trips to the Adirondacks, usually accompanied by one of his beloved dogs, Churchill, Seamus, and Banagan.
Dale was one of a handful of key players in 2009 who worked to merge the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks with the Residents’ Committee to Protect the Adirondacks into Protect the Adirondacks! Dale drafted many of the organizational materials, including the first Bylaws. Dale envisioned that the new organization would be a premier activist organization and pushed for the ! at the end of Protect the Adirondacks! to emphasize that point. After the merger Dale served as a leading officer, Board member, and a proud member of the Conservation Advocacy Committee.
Dale’s passion for the Adirondacks led him to be outspoken and active on fighting floatplanes on Low’s Lake, pushing to protect the Forest Preserve by upholding Article 14, the famed Forever Wild clause in the New York Constitution, pushing to expand Wilderness areas and motorless lakes, intervene in the planning around military overflights, and watchdogging major proposed subdivisions on private lands in the Park. He provided legal research that helped to prohibit ATVs on the Forest Preserve.
Dale was born and raised in Watertown, New York, son of Francis Byron Jeffers and Veronica L’Huillier Jeffers. After graduating from Watertown High School, he went on to receive an accounting degree from the University of Buffalo and a law degree from Albany Law School.
Dale spent most of his life in the Albany area, where he worked as a CPA at Cluett Peabody and Company and at Roth, Lurie. He then became a practicing tax attorney with Lombardi, Reinhardt, Walsh and Harrison. In his free time, Dale was an avid craftsman, building wood furniture and carefully crafting cedar strip canoes. He also loved gardening and later in life was a voracious reader.
Besides his parents, Dale was predeceased by his beloved wife of 26 years, Barbara “Bobbi” Banagan Jeffers. Dale cherished his time with Bobbi and the entire Banagan clan. He is survived by his brother, Darrell Jeffers of Albany and Palm Springs, Calif.; sister, Sue Miller of Watertown and Wildwood, Fla.; two daughters, Amanda Townsley (Mike) of Houston, Texas and Elissa Smith (Justin) of Menands; three granddaughters; and nephews and nieces.
Dale’s leadership will be sorely missed at Protect the Adirondacks, but we are all truly grateful for his leadership, friendship, and activism.
