Seventh-generation commercial fisher Lena Ritter lived in a tiny village and had never once spoken in public when she led a movement to save Stump Sound oysters.

Builders planned nearly 400 condominiums, a marina, tennis courts and more at Permuda Island, a 1.5-mile strip of scrub-forested sand on Stump Sound in Onslow County, N.C. Lena knew the project’s runoff pollution would destroy shellfish that commercial fishers depended on to make a living. “I couldn’t just sit by and let that happen,” she said. 

Lena called the newspaper that outlined the project in 1983 and convinced a reporter to dig deeper. Within 45 minutes, Lena had gathered 17 commercial fishers to talk to the journalist. That led to 200 commercial fishers uniting to form the Stump Sound Shellfishermen Coalition. 

Working with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, then a new environmental-protection group, Lena learned everything she could about the environmental protection rule-making process. She dished out straight talk at decision-maker meetings. 

“I never spoke in public before. I remember how scared to death I was at that first meeting in Jacksonville. All I knew to do was to speak what was in my heart,” Lena recalled in a 2013 interview. 

She quit fishing for a while to take a night job in a pie factory so that her days would be free to attend meetings as far away as Raleigh. County commissioners threatened to sue her for harassment. Lena was not intimidated. Permuda Island ended up a state coastal preserve. 

"Our heritage, our culture, our environment our clean water -- it's not for sale at no price,” Lena said in a 1987 North Carolina Sea Grant Coastwatch article. 

Lena passed away in 2016, but the fire she lights under all of us continues to burn. As Lena said, “Don't sit down and let 'em take it away from you.”