By Howard Whiteman
Murray State University
There is a lot of gloom and doom in this world, but there are also many bright spots. Karlee Peeler, from Farmington, is one of those bright spots.
You could say Karlee is different from most high school sophomores. She likes snakes, but also competes in pageants. Imagine that? She uses the pageants to help educate people about snakes, pollinators, and other important but under-appreciated parts of our environment.
She’s also a big-time volunteer, helping out at the LBL’s Woodlands Nature Station, The Salvation Army, Needline, cultivating pollinator gardens, doing outreach events on the environment at local schools, and she even spent time helping with toad research at Murray State’s Hancock Biological Station. She also started a petition to green areas that are being developed as a solar farm in Graves County. In a very real way, Karlee is an environmental advocate and activist.
In part because of all of these accomplishments and experiences, Karlee was named the 2024 Graves County Teen Miss United States Agriculture, and most recently was named Kentucky People’s Choice Miss United States Agriculture.
I’m extremely fortunate in that I occasionally get to meet a student in their late teens or early twenties that makes me feel better about the future. It’s always heartening, and over the years I have noticed that my students are getting more and more engaged, passionate, and focused about environmental problems than ever before.
Rarely, however, do I get to meet someone currently in high school that is so passionate about the environment and shows it not only in her speech but also through her multitude of activities, all of which have benefited our world.
You can think about Karlee as our regional Greta Thunberg who made history when, as a teenager. She found ways to gain an international presence by advocating for greater efforts from older generations — you and me and all of the 30+ somethings that have been ruling the planet — to take climate change more seriously, and to do something about it. She’s been an inspiration to people of all ages with her courage, eloquence of speech, and passion, particularly at such a young age. Karlee seems to be cut from the same cloth.
I am sure that there are more kids out there that I don’t know about that are doing similar things, and that realization — that there are more Karlees and Gretas in the world — definitely makes me feel better about the future.
Yes, we have major problems. And yes, current generations can no longer kick the can down the road. The Karlees of the world are unlikely to let us get away with that any longer anyway, because they understand better than any of us that we are affecting their future more than anyone else’s. We have to work to make the changes that will benefit our environment, our people, our Karlees, and all of the teenagers of the future.
It is also nice to know that Karlee’s generation has a greater appreciation for nature, and its’ conservation, than any other that has existed in our country. The Karlees of the world are going to do their best to make sure that all of us — of all ages — learn to appreciate nature like they do, and help us think about ways we can all change our behavior to conserve and restore it. The future is bright, indeed, and helping to lead the way is a snake-wrangling teenage pageant-winner.
Dr. Howard Whiteman is the Commonwealth Endowed Chair of Environmental Studies and professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Murray State University.