Steven Price, colleague, WWF - Canada

A story… Pegi was an inveterate songster. At any moment, she could warble a line or two – a country & western song, a show-tune, a pop-song. If it was December, we’d hear her belt out O Tannenbaum / O Christmas Tree in the halls at WWF, so boldly and brashly it was clearly more schtick that serious. The Pegi singing story I hold most dear happened in the early 90s in Washington, D.C. We were with the WWF network’s Latin American team, not long after Pegi had been to the Amazon to help the Kayapo indigenous people with their anti-damming campaign. At the bar one evening with colleagues from around the world, someone got the Karaoke machine going with Wild Thing and other favourites. Pegi and I conferred and leapt up to croon Richard and Karen Carpenter’s Close To You in duet, holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes. We got a standing ovation. She loved it. Walking home with the group that night, Pegi stopped us all to listen to a street musician we’d ignored, banging out great beats with his eight-piece drum kit of large white pails. Pegi approached his dark stall to drop some bills into his collection pail. I remember nothing else about that meeting week!