By Eric Watkins
For a number of years, our group has collaborated with the Metropolitan Council in efforts to reduce lawn water use in the Twin Cities. When looking for someone to lead this work, I was fortunate to meet Shane Evans, who had just recently completed graduate work on lawn water conservation at Utah State University. Shane joined our group in early March of 2020 as our lawn water conservation educator. Right when he started, Minnesota’s governor made him stay home for a couple of weeks; this unexpected pause allowed Shane to get caught up on low-input turfgrasses and water conservation research. No big deal--a couple of weeks and we’ll be back to normal!
In the 18 months Shane was with us, he accomplished a lot! One of his first accomplishments was leading a four-part webinar series called Watering Wisdom. Another big task he completed was the creation of a lawn water education mobile trailer that he then took to community events throughout the Twin Cities last summer (Figure 1). Throughout this time at UMN he also conducted water conservation research on campus and spent countless hours at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum working on an irrigation controller demonstration.
Shane also accomplished a lot outside of this work with our group. Soon after arriving in Minnesota, Shane and his wife Andrea had their first child. He later took the local Frisbee golf community by storm, winning a tournament in St. Cloud (Figure 2). One of his last feats was completing a marathon in Ely.
In November 2021, Shane left for a position in private industry that was a great fit for him and closer to family. Though he was here a short time, Shane had a lot of impact and his work will provide a great foundation for our next lawn water conservation educator.