Former Publisher of Sunset Magazine to Deliver Annual Lane Lecture at WSU

PULLMAN, Wash. — The former publisher of SUNSET Magazine, books and films, and former
ambassador to Australia and Nauru, L.W. “Bill” Lane, Jr., will deliver the 1998 Lane Family Lecture in
Environmental Science at Washington State University on Oct. 29. His lecture, titled “The Environment
into the Next Millennium,” will focus on future challenges and opportunities for conserving the world’s
natural resources. The lecture is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Todd Hall Auditorium.
Lane is expected to discuss his belief that the next millennium holds the hope of achieving far better
environmental practices. “There is a slow-but-sure, increasing awareness that if we do not drastically
change many of our ways that the time will eventually come when we will have no choice,” said Lane.
“Perhaps in the next millennium, we can only hope that we will not come head-to-head with an inevitable
deadline of global warming, mass malnutrition, or a catastrophic world war over dwindling oil resources.”
Under the Lane family, SUNSET became an early pioneer in recognizing environmental problems and,
through editorials, helped “blow the whistle on DDT” as far back as 1969. It refused advertising from
tobacco and liquor companies and from chemical companies that produced dangerous pesticides, as well as
from the National Rifle Association. Merged with Time Warner in 1990, the magazine is celebrating its
centennial year of continuous publication and is one of the few magazines to achieve this record.
Lane became a national leader in the development of conservation policies affecting national parks,
deserts, oceans and the atmosphere by serving on national and regional committees. He served as an adviser
to the Secretary of the Interior on issues relating to national parks through the Nixon, Ford, Carter and
Reagan administrations. He chaired the Presidential Commission on the Centennial of the National Parks in
1972 and received an environmental award from the National Parks Foundation in 1994. Lane advocates
developing responsible environmental priorities for the travel industry.
Lane served as U. S. Ambassador to Australia and Nauru in the Reagan and Bush administrations and
as Ambassador-at-large and Commissioner General in Japan during the Ford administration.
Endowed by a $150,000 gift from Bill and Jean Lane, the Lane Family Lectureship in Environmental
Science at WSU was created as an expression of the Lane family’s commitment to helping society
“recognize and solve problems related to the environment.” Lane Fellowships, which were created by
Lane’s son and daughter-in-law, Bob and Wendi Lane, will be awarded to WSU environmental science
students for the 1998/99 academic year prior to the lecture.
Previous Lane lectures have been delivered by ethnobotanist and tropical rainforest conservationist
Mark Plotkin, zero population growth advocate Paul Ehrlich, environmental lawyer Ann Strong, Earth Day
founder Denis Hayes and former Environmental Protection Agency administrator William K. Reilly.
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