Groton — Maggie Jones, winner of this year's William Crawford Distinguished Service Award from the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut, was celebrated Tuesday night as a strong and tenacious woman with a passion for the outdoors nurtured in youth.

Several hundred people attended the award dinner at the Mystic Marriott in which Jones, executive director of the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, was honored for her years of conservation work and community service.

"Maggie's biggest strength is the ability to surround herself with people who are really good at what they do," said Craig Floyd, manager of DPNC's Coogan Farm, according to a copy of his speech obtained before the dinner. "DPNC is truly a close-knit family — we celebrate with each other and support each other — this is what Maggie has built, a family that tends to its neighbors."

Susan Funk, who was on the search committee that named Jones the nature center's leader nearly a quarter century ago, said the Connecticut College graduate brought a rare range of skills to the job: artist, birder, conservationist, historian, manager and educator among them.

Funk, who spoke at Tuesday's dinner but was interviewed about the nature center leader beforehand, said Jones is a leader who invites participation. She also knows how to navigate around the political sphere, Funk said, working toward resolutions rather than engaging in losing battles.

"Maggie is anything but static," Funk said. "She's about action, and she's tenacious. She follows up and doesn't give up easily."

Along the way, she said, Jones has expanded the reach of what had been a largely local effort to engage growing numbers of people from throughout the region. The organization now supports not only Coogan Farm, but rehabilitation of hawks and owls, a preschool, classrooms and exhibitions, as well.

And Jones has advocated an interdisciplinary approach that includes art, history and heritage in her conservation efforts, Funk said, calling the nature center an exemplar in the region and beyond.

"She's been such an incredible force in the community," Funk said.

Floyd said he and Jones go way back, and he remembers her father, a family doctor who inspired the fledgling nature lover to explore the farms and woods around Old Mystic.

"Maggie is just as tough as her dad — try competing with her," he joked.

Floyd recalled his cousin, Keith Williams, helped the Jones family build stonewalls until finally Maggie decided one day to build her own.

"That’s where she learned patience," he said. "Working with stone, she became tough and strong but kind."

He remembers Jones sledding from the top of a favorite local hill in Old Mystic near River Road down to a Baptist church more than a mile away, then walking back determinedly to do it again.

"That walk back up was part of what defines the athlete in Maggie Jones," he said.

But inner drive isn't all that energizes her, Floyd said. She also gets jazzed over what he called "neighborhood values."

"When you combine that with her love for nature, you end up with the perfect person for the nature center and the neighboorhood," he said.

Floyd said the addition of Coogan Farm to the nature center universe has been a huge boost for the community, saving the area from development while adding myriad educational opportunities.

But he said her biggest gift is the so-called Giving Garden that, with help from Lisa Tepper Bates, Virginia Mason and a legion of volunteers, has allowed for donations of more than 13,000 pounds of produce to the New London food bank.

"Now we save the children along with the possums, the raccoons and the bees," he said. "We are teaching a way to farm in a way that Mother Nature wants us to farm — gently, respectfully — the way Maggie Jones treats all of those she comes in contact with."

l.howard@theday.com