The first time Margaret Reyhner gave public comment in Olympia, she was scared to death and her voice was shaking.

The year was 1972, and she was speaking up on a subject that she would continue to advocate for for the next 50 years at least — Steel Lake and the people who live there.

After that first foray into the world of advocacy, the Federal Way resident realized she enjoys public speaking and has continued to speak up, motivated to tackle each issue as it comes by the positive wins she’s enjoyed over the years.

Her most recent win was successfully encouraging the city of Federal Way to take ownership of forested lagoon earlier this year at one end of the lake after seeing a “for sale” sign.

The lagoon also had several developers interested in it over the years, but each time, she gathered neighbors together to express the community’s preference that it stay untouched.

The lagoon is an area she personally enjoys, but like with her other work, her biggest motivator is making sure it was protected for everyone to benefit.

“I feel fortunate that we can share the lake with the city,” Reyhner said, highlighting Steel Lake Park in particular. “During the pandemic, when they had to close the park, it was so quiet. It was an unnatural quiet…somebody on the lake called it a joyful noise [that was missing].”

She also spoke to the joyful noise of baptisms performed at the beach saying, “some people will complain about how loud it is … but I think it’s great that we have a place that the different churches can come.”

For her advocacy for the nature and community at Steel Lake, Margaret Reyhner is the Mirror’s Hometown Hero for April.

Take a trip around the lake with Reyhner, and she’ll point out a clump of reeds where red-winged blackbirds nest, highlight which house belongs to the neighbor who feeds the ducks, and give you the background story on the noisy adolescence of the teenage seagulls that frequent her dock.

Around the lake are also stories of times she’s advocated for change in the neighborhood, and not just for the lake itself.

One year, she and her neighbors got tired of having to cross a busy and dangerous road to check their mail.

“We went and talked to the post office and they said [we] have to have everybody’s permission and/or everybody has to agree,” Reyhner said. She and a neighbor got everyone on board, almost.

“There were old train cars, street cars, that people lived in…it was kind of scary because I had no idea who lived there. Nobody was home and there were lots of beer bottles around,” Reyhner said. She knocked on the door anyway and despite not getting in verbal contact with them, it was good enough for the post office and the mailboxes were moved.

Reyhner’s very first project was brought on by a lake full of dead fish.

It was common practice at the time to kill off certain species of fish, then stock the lake with trout for people to catch recreationally, but the process didn’t account for anyone to clean up the dead fish after they were killed.

The first time they did it, “my neighbors went out and saved some of the fish, kept them in their bathtub and then released them back,” Reyhner said. “I think that’s why we still have bass and perch in the lake today.”

After she asked the tough questions about who was going to clean up the dead fish, she got her first win, stopping the fish kill.

The lake is still stocked with trout today by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, which Reyhner got to see for the first time recently as a truck deposited a deluge of water and fish out of a chute and into the lake. The event also brought another opportunity to do what she does best and address an issue directly, but kindly.

Waiting in the water nearby, she said she saw two young men and a child who seemed poised to enjoy a round of fishing with the plentiful new stock, even though the fishing season hadn’t officially begun.

Rehyner let them know that the season hadn’t started yet, and was surprised with a friendly response, appreciating that she had let them know and saying they were surprised the person with WDFW hadn’t told them.

She’s gotten to know WDFW staff well over the years as she’s worked to get action taken on milfoil, algal blooms and other ecological imbalances that threaten the lake environment.

One of her favorite ways to enjoy the lake herself is to bring a book and paddle her canoe out to the far end, then put the oars away and read as the wind helps her drift back to her side of the lake.

Whether she is on her canoe, her kayak or her larger boat, swimming laps between the dock and the shore or simply enjoying the lake’s beauty from her deck, the water is an important part of Reyhner’s life.

This love for water is even part of the reason she and her identical twin chose Western Washington University to study before she moved to Federal Way.

That happened after college when she and her husband got their first apartment near Steel Lake, if not right on the water. After saving up from his job at Boeing and hers as a teacher, they eventually got a house on the water and have enjoyed it ever since.

She’s been in Federal Way a long time and seen a lot of change over the years, but when asked if she misses anything from the past, she said she doesn’t.

“Change happens,” she said simply.

She has had to embrace this truth in many challenging circumstances over the years, including facing the death of her twin.

“My twin gave me the greatest gift just before she died. It was the last time I was ever able to talk with her, and I asked her how I was going to get along without her, and she told me life was going to go on, but it was going to be different,” Reyhner said. She is now in another difficult chapter as she faces her husband’s health challenges, including current hospice care.

In all of this, she focuses on the positive and on taking action in what she has power over and being as positive and accepting about the rest.

These challenges are also easier to manage with the support of a community, which has become more tight knit over the years, much in part to her many rounds of door-knocking and community engagement.

Reflecting on the change in advocacy itself over the years, she said change has also been positive — “there’s so many more people aware of taking care of the environment and what we need to do to protect our environment.”

Although she staysengaged still, she is not the lake’s only protector. There is an entire Steel Lake Management District Committee Board to do that now, but she did help start that management body 21 years ago too.

A Canadian goose stands guard at the entrance of the lagoon at one end of Steel Lake, protecting a nesting partner inside. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror

Margaret Reyhner in her canoe, enjoying the lagoon that she recently helped to protect. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror

A turtle soaks up some sun inside the lagoon at Steel Lake after crawling onto a fallen tree. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror