Temple said she was born and raised in Lufkin and has always loved the Neches.
“ I have always been in love with rivers, and wanted to make a film specifically about the Neches River. It’ s just magical, and it’ s worth talking about. It’ s worth our love, and it’ s worth our protection.
“ I grew up outdoors. I’ ve paddled. I fish. I love to fly fish, so I stand in rivers to fly fish. Rivers are part of our DNA. We cannot live without. We can’ t live without water, and rivers are our source. They are a part of our human history, starting 1000s of years ago. I wanted to do a film specifically about our river, which is maybe the last wild bottomland hardwood forest river in the United States, and there used to be hundreds of them in Mississippi, but they are all soybean fields now. So it’ s pretty special.”
Temple said a group of Lufkin chamber members – lead by Gina Donovan – started the Neches River Rendezvous 25 years ago.
Gina Donovan was the daughter of Richard
Donavan, a dedicated supporter of the river whom paddled the entire length of the Neches twice and wrote the book“ Paddling the Neches” to bring awareness to the river’ s value and beauty and the efforts by the city of Dallas to build a dam on the Neches. Richard Donovan wanted to see the Neches designated as a National Wild and Scenic River, preserving the river’ s natural flow and what remains of the verdant bottomlands of this historic watercourse.
Temple said she went out on the river for the first time with Richard Donovan in the first Neches River Rendezvous, and said“ it was magical.”
“ We were the first to go out, and we followed a blue heron down the river as the sun rose, and the deer came down,” Temple said. We were ahead of everybody, and so we saw the wildlife and kingfisher darting back and forth and catching bugs. I fell in love with the river that day 25 years ago, and I’ ve loved it ever since. I’ ve paddled it many times, up and down the river, and participated in all the river rendezvous for 25 years when we could actually hold them, and then the rally down in the Big Thicket Neches Rally, which started 10 years after our Rendezvous. So I’ ve just paddled almost the whole river with friends, and continue to do so. I love the river, and I wanted to bring everybody’ s attention to how important it is, and how it needs our love and our protection.”
Temple said for the past 100 years, people have worked really hard to protect the Neches River bottomlands and the flow of the river, stopping dams, creating protected bottomlands, however fragmentation and clearing of the bottomlands continues to be battles being fought.
Temple said the Neches is only encumbered by two overflow dams, Lake Palestine and B. A. Steinhagen Dam.“ They don’ t disrupt the flow of the river,” she said. Eleven miles of the river flow through the Neches
River National Wildlife Refuge, a 7,000 acre pro-
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