Bill Karges given Villa Park Green Champion award

VILLA PARK – The Green Champion award will be presented to Bill Karges by the Villa Park Environmental Concerns Commission at the May 9 village board meeting.

The commission advises the village president and board of trustees on matters relating to the preservation, protection and improvement of the environment, including the quality of land, air and water, the news release stated.

This year, the commission created a Green Champion recognition program to recognize the outstanding environmental achievements of individuals, groups, organizations or businesses in Villa Park. The commission selected Karges, a lifelong Villa Park resident and manager of Pioneer Garden and Feed, as the first recipient.

Karges has been an outstanding example and a resource in the community for residents interested in composting, water conservation and gardening in an environmentally friendly way, according to the release. Participants in educational programs he has presented, as well as customers at Pioneer Garden and Feed in Villa Park, have benefited from Karges sharing his extensive knowledge for the past 43 years.

Karges, a graduate of Iowa State University with degrees in botany and communications, began his love of gardening at a young age, according to the release. When he was 9, his parents dug him his first garden bed. As a kid tall for his age, by age 13 he already had been asked by John Leston, founder of Villa Park’s Pioneer Garden and Feed, to begin working there. Throughout the years, Leston kept asking him to come back until Karges finally gave up other jobs and made gardening his full-time career.

The commission thanks Karges for his contributions and congratulates him on receiving the VPECC Green Champion award in its inaugural year, the release stated. Karges’ devotion to protecting the environment is why the commission selected him as a Green Champion, the release stated.

“We owe it to ourselves and to all life on the planet to be better stewards of whatever part of the Earth we call home,” Karges said in the release. “Because no one really owns the Earth, we have the great responsibility of passing it on to the next generation in better shape than the way we found it.”

For more information on the Villa Park Environmental Concerns Commission, visit www.invillapark.com.