“She’s very much a modern day Ghandi type of person around the world, she really is,” said Dave Pagni, community partnerships coordinator for the West Linn-Wilsonville School District. “She’s an icon.”

Pagni and his wife, Kathleen, had the good fortune to meet Goodall in the early 1980s when they lived in Washington, D.C. Even after moving to Oregon 10 years later, Pagni said, Goodall still remembered their connection and readily agreed to visit local students in the fall of 1995. She returned a year later, and again in 2001.

“She loved the natural science emphasis in our school district, and she took us under her wing so to speak,” Pagni said.

Thus it was no surprise that Goodall’s most recent visit last week for Oregon’s annual Roots and Shoots state conference drew attention from educators, students and media outlets far beyond Wilsonville city limits.

“I’ve heard a lot about her, and I like animals and stuff, especially monkeys,” said Daisy Santana, a fifth grade student at Boeckman Creek Primary School. “Yes, it’s really exciting. I didn’t even know at first that I was going to get to meet her.”

Santana and other Boeckman Creek fifth graders were just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it came to the people Goodall met last Wednesday during a stop in Wilsonville to promote Roots and Shoots, a global environmental and humanitarian education program she founded in 1991. From a single branch, the program now embraces over 90,000 members in over 100 countries.

Through CREST director Bob Carlson, the West Linn-Wilsonville School District has Roots and Shoots programs at all of its middle and primary schools, including Wilsonville’s Boeckman Creek and Boones Ferry primary schools and Wood Middle School.

“It’s hard to get a group of kids “It’s hard to get a group of kids to an event like this,” Carlson said with a smile as he addressed the over 700 primary, middle and high school students attending the conference. “13 years ago, Dr. Jane Goodall came for the first time to our school district. And every time, she inspires parents, teachers and students. I can’t say enough about how she’s helped our school district.”

Following the conference and Goodall’s visit with students that afternoon at Boones Ferry Primary, she grabbed a quick bite to eat before wrapping up the evening with a seminar and extended book signing at Marylhurst University in West Linn.

The conference brought in groups of students and teachers from all over Wilsonville, the greater Portland area and even as far away as Salem. Each group set up a booth to highlight the work students have done to put Roots and Shoots ideals to practical use.

For example, Boones Ferry Primary science students focused on water conservation and offered concrete steps to aid in reducing water use by individuals or groups.

And, as Goodall said during an exclusive pre-conference meeting with members of the press, a student’s age is no barrier to coming up with valuable ideas to improve their surroundings and the environment they live in.

“Even very tiny children have passions,” Goodall said.

Now 74, the English-born Goodall still maintains an arduous travel schedule which puts her on the road, mostly internationally, for up to 300 days a year. Roughly four months of that time are spent in the U.S.

“My energy, I think, comes from everywhere I go,” she said. “There are people everywhere who are coming to hear about what we’re doing, and they’re excited at the role they can play.”

Goodall also told students that despite the fact she is widely known for her study of African chimpanzees, there are pressing environmental and social problems staring them in the face right here at home.

“In North America and everywhere, people are suffering,” she said. “In some parts of the world, children are hungry and they get sick from eating the food. They get sick from breathing the air and they get sick from drinking the water. There are parts of this country where tapwater is not available. Even in this rich country.”

Ending on a hopeful note, Goodall told the crowd, many of whom were wielding video and still cameras to record the moment, that despite the fact it is easy to become frustrated with current events, they should approach each day with a renewed sense of optimism.