Noted author Bill Belleville is receiving the Al Burt Award for his book, Losing It All to Sprawl: How Progress Ate My Cracker Landscape. In it he movingly recounts how he lost his 1920s Seminole County Cracker farmhouse and rural community to rampant sprawl. The award will be presented by 1000 Friends of Florida at a meeting of the Friends of the Wekiva, to be held on Thursday, October 4, 2007, at 7:00 P.M., at the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Markham Woods Road in Longwood. 1000 Friends of Florida President Charles Pattison will also make a presentation on Florida 2060, which includes alarming projections on Florida's growth and development patterns over the next 50 years. The public is welcome to attend. For more information, contact Peggy Thomas at 407-862-8231.

"Bill's book brings the issues of growth and development to a deeply personal level," says Pattison. "He shows how man and nature managed to coexist for more than 10,000 years . . . until the bulldozers came and a new mall and homes were built nearby."

Bill chronicles the stories of the Timucua and Mayaca who first settled the region millennia ago, the Spanish conquistadors who traveled through, the early tourists who laid the foundation for Florida's transformation, and the Cracker families who built and lived in the home Bill came to love. He shares his passion for nature and his strong belief in the need of a sense of place. And he documents how rampant growth and sprawl threatened his home, his community, and the nearby Wekiva River.

Peggy Thomas, president of the Friends of the Wekiva River, says, "Bill has been on the board since the early nineties, and has been very pro-active in helping the larger community understand the many values of the river system---from testifying at public hearings to writing books and producing films illustrating the need for conservation. The river's not just a theoretical experience for Bill---he really has a passion for it all."

"We were also impressed by how Losing It All to Sprawl personalizes the topics of sprawl and growth management for the mainstream reader," says Charles Pattison. Bill addresses such concepts as sustainability, New Urbanism, property rights, and the economic, social, environmental and other costs of growth. "Bill has done a masterful job of showing how unchecked development hurts us all."

Bill Belleville is a respected Florida nature writer, whose work has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, Audubon, Sierra and numerous other publications. He also wrote three other books, including the well-received River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River, and won an Emmy for producing and scripting the documentary, Wekiva: Legacy or Loss? His National PBS film, In Marjorie's Wake, premiers this fall.

1000 Friends has been presenting awards for innovative growth management efforts since 1990. The Al Burt Award is presented for a body of outstanding journalism that keeps the issues affecting Florida's future in the public eye.

Losing It All to Sprawl, which was released in 2006 as part of the University of Florida Press' "Florida History and Culture Series," is available by calling 1-800-226-3822. It was named one of the "Best Books of 2006" by the National Library Journal.

A statewide nonprofit organization, 1000 Friends was founded in 1986 to serve as Florida's growth management watchdog.