Retired T-D writer honored for bay reporting

Lawrence Latané III, a former staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's conservationist of the year.

The environmental group made the announcement yesterday.

Latané covered the bay from 1986 to 2008 from the Times-Dispatch's Northern Neck bureau in Warsaw. He retired from journalism last year and operates Blenheim Organic Gardens, an organic farm, with his wife, Becky.

"Lawrence was arguably the dean of bay journalists in Virginia," said Chuck Epes, a spokesman for the bay foundation.

"There is no doubt that Virginia policymakers, elected officials and citizens know more about the bay and care more about the bay today because Lawrence Latané was writing for the past two decades."

The conservationist award is the foundation's most prestigious honor, given annually to recognize "extraordinary contributions to efforts" to save the bay, the organization said.

"I guess I'm surprised and honored at the same time," Latané said yesterday.

The bay was becoming more newsworthy just as he started covering it, Latané said. "I kind of turned it into a beat [for the newspaper] that really hadn't been there."

Latané has deep roots in the region; his family's farm on the Potomac River is part of the original holdings of George Washington's family.

Latané's reporting on the bay ranged from the policy and agencies that affected the estuary to moving personal accounts about the lore and customs of the region, many of them giving way to growth and modernization.

He wrote about the lives of watermen, boat builders, farmers and others whose livelihoods were linked to the bay region's lands and waters. -- Tom Kapsidelis