Who is silvio o conte

Check out our Get Involved page to learn more about helping out at the refuge. Make community connections through fishing. Learn how you can get involved or plan a program in your community. We are working with partners throughout the watershed to create and restore wildlife habitats in urban areas. Learn about these programs that provide opportunities for city residents to learn about the watershed and participate in education and conservation activities where they live.

Learn more News Refuge Happenings Learn more about what's happening around the refuge. Fish and Wildlife Service, manages a national network of lands and waters set aside to conserve America's fish, wildlife, and plants. Silvio O. Conte was an avid sportsman and environmentalist who represented Massachusetts in Congress for 32 years.

To ensure the protection of the Connecticut River watershed, he introduced federal legislation establishing the refuge that now bears his name. Although most refuge lands and outdoor spaces have remained open for the public to enjoy, we ask that you recreate responsibly. Check alerts and local conditions on this website and call ahead for current information. Dorgan combed through appropriations bills trying to find a pork-barrel project in Conte's district.

He never succeeded and finally gave up. I never seemed to be able to find his fingerprints," Dorgan said. On this day in , Silvio Conte was elected to the Massachusetts State Senate, the first of four successive terms in state legislature. A recent graduate of Boston College Law School, Conte returned to his hometown of Pittsfield to practice law and enter the political arena. His first campaign was for the State Senate in ; he won that race and every other for the rest of his life.

In moved into national politics with his election to the U. House of Representatives. Conte was immensely popular with the voters of western Massachusetts. In Congressman Silvio Conte's hometown of Pittsfield, young boys trying to impress their peers would brag, "My old man knows Conte.

Conte projected the image of "a regular guy" who would happily "sit at your kitchen table and have a plate of spaghetti and a glass of wine. From until his death in , his position on the House Appropriations Committee made him one of the most powerful and influential men in the nation. Silvio O. Conte was born in to Italian immigrant parents. He was raised in Lakewood, Pittsfield's working-class Italian neighborhood. Graduating from vocational school in the midst of the Depression, Conte followed his father into the machine shop at General Electric, Pittsfield's major employer.

Conte enlisted in the Navy and served in the South Pacific from After the war, he took advantage of the G. Bill and enrolled at Boston College.

After college, he continued at B. Law School. In , Conte returned home to Pittsfield, law degree in hand. He went into practice and almost immediately into politics. His first campaign in was for the State Senate. He won that race and every other for the rest of his life. Moving from the state legislature to the U. House in , Silvio Conte was immensely popular with the voters of western Massachusetts.

His success was remarkable, given that he was a Republican and that his was an overwhelmingly Democratic district. Conte who had " In the refuge named in his honor was established to fulfill that dream. The refuge was designed to include the entire Connecticut River watershed because legislators realized that, in order to protect migratory fish and other aquatic species, there was a need to protect the whole river system and its watershed; the health of any aquatic ecosystem is linked to the health of the whole watershed upstream.

Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge works in partnership with a wide variety of individuals and organizations to provide environmental education, to encourage and support appropriate habitat conservation and management on public and private lands, and to protect habitat. Land acquisition activities have resulted in the protection of key habitats for neotropical migratory birds, waterfowl, and threatened and endangered species.