The Maryland Department of Natural Resources wants to award individuals who have aided the restoration and conservation of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.The department is accepting nominations for its Admiral of the Chesapeake Bay award now through March 31.A committee of staff volunteers at DNR will then review the nominations and make a recommendation to the department’s secretary. The governor and DNR plan to announce this year’s award winners by June 1.“The Admiral of the Chesapeake Bay is among the most important awards we bestow in Maryland and we want to make sure we’re receiving nominations from every part of the state that encompass the diversity of people and activities that improve the Chesapeake Bay,” said Department of Natural Resources Secretary Josh Kurtz in a statement. “We’re reforming the nomination process to make it more accessible to all.”Former Maryland Gov. J. Millard Tawes instituted the Admiral of the Chesapeake Bay award in 1959 to recognize individuals who have demonstrated “extraordinary commitment to the conservation and restoration of the Chesapeake Bay” according to a news release.Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation founder and CEO Vincent Leggett, who was honored as Admiral of the Chesapeake Bay in 2003 by then-Gov. Parris N. Glendenning, worked tirelessly to highlight the role of Black people in the history and care of the Chesapeake Bay.During his decades-long career, in 2022 Leggett partnered with the Governor’s Office and DNR to purchase Carr’s Beach in Annapolis with about $5 million in state funds and turn the property into a public park. The beach is the remaining parcel of the Black beaches that Annapolis’s Carr family once owned.Following Leggett’s death in November 2024, DNR sought to honor Leggett by updating its process to solicit more nominations.More than 100 people have been honored with the Admiral of the Chesapeake award. Some include Captain Eldridge Meredith, a waterman and charter boat captain who had an 80-year long career working in and around the Chesapeake Bay; Tom Horton, a journalist who has written about the Bay for more than 40 years; and John Page Williams, a master naturalist and environmental educator who worked 46 years for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.View a full list of previous Admiral of the Chesapeake award recipients on DNR’s website.If you know a Chesapeake Bay steward who you think would be a good candidate for the award, nominate them by filling out this public nomination form.