As a child growing up in Depression-era rural Georgia, Becca Dalton was riding in her father's car when she saw a large rock in the highway. She said, "Somebody ought to move that rock."

"My father turned to me and said, `You are somebody else. Why don't you move it,' " said Dalton, who now lives in Rock Hill. "And I did."

She's never forgotten the encounter and says it's partially responsible for almost 30 years of volunteer work as an environmentalist.

"It's too easy to just sit back and assume somebody else is going to take the initiative," said Dalton, who mailed out the Henry's Knob chapter of the Sierra Club newsletter from her kitchen table for more than a decade. "If you see that it needs to be done, you need to realize you're not excused from the task. You need to get up and move that rock."

And it was that kind of activism that prompted the S.C. Chapter of the Sierra Club to give Becca and her husband, Harry, the group's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Carl Pope, national executive director of the nation's largest and oldest environmental organization, will present the award during a reception in Columbia on Thursday. During an earlier ceremony to recognize the Daltons, Republican Gov. Mark Sanford will proclaim "S.C. Sierra Club Awareness Week." Also attending will be former Gov. Jim Hodges and U.S. Rep. John Spratt, both Democrats.

Besides providing years of leadership and volunteer service to the Sierra Club's local chapter, the philanthropist couple are responsible for helping to preserve two of York County's most visible landmarks: Nanny's Mountain off S.C. 49 near Lake Wylie and the county's new 1,700-acre primitive park along the Broad River. In both instances, the wooded tracts were in danger of being developed and at the time, no private group or government agency had the money to buy the land. The Daltons put up more than $1.5 million and then resold the land (at no profit) for public use when money became available.

"As much as Harry and Becca have done publicly to protect the environment, they have probably even done more behind the scenes that no one will ever know about. They are truly humble people," said Pat Grant, membership chair of the Henry's Knob chapter that includes York County. "When I think of the Daltons, I think of people who were environmentalists when it wasn't cool. ... When you speak of good stewards of the land, you couldn't find two better examples."

The Daltons single-handedly started Rock Hill's recycling program more than two decades ago by arranging to have a truck near Winthrop University pick up old newspapers. The city of Rock Hill has since taken over and greatly expanded the recycling program.

Harry Dalton laughs when he hears the rock story and says his wife has long been the "prompter" in getting him involved in supporting environmental causes in York County, as well as on the state and national levels.

"I'm her mouthpiece, the one that usually gets the attention, but it's Becca who has the zeal," said Dalton, who is retired and is the former chair of the national Sierra Club Foundation. "She's the one that gets you out there doing it, instead of standing around and talking about doing it."

Harry says the turning point in his environmentalism occurred in the mid-1970s during a three-week camping trip to the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone and the Colorado Rockies. Dalton was accompanying two of the couple's teenage children and two of their friends. Around the campfire at night, Dalton frequently found himself defending the status quo as a representative of corporate America. He is the former chief executive of Star Paper Tube.

"The kids kept hammering me about businessmen not defending the environment and why I wasn't doing anything to help the situation," he said.

"I came back and talked to Becca. She was the one that had us attending our first Sierra Club meeting. ... And we've been going ever since."

Dan Huntley