Career
He worked to develop county parks that met needs from plug-in campers to untouched wilderness areas. He was instrumental in delaying construction of a rerouted United States. Highway 20 through the Iowa River Greenbelt in Hardin County, Iowa. On October 5, 1960, Homer Calkins was hired as the first executive director of the He remained as the executive director of the Board for 18 years, and rehabilitated injured animals most of his life.
While executive director of the, Calkins had a long-running radio show on radio station KIFG-Department of Administration and Management. In a folksy style similar to Aldo Leopold"s A Sand County Almanac, Calkins would speak about natural scenes observed locally.
Calkins also wrote weekly newspaper columns for the Iowa Falls Times-Citizen, the Ackley World Journal, and the Eldora Herald-Ledger. Bordering the Iowa River in north central Iowa, the nature center includes woodland, wetland, and reconstructed native prairie.
In the late 1990s, students in Landscape Architecture from Iowa State University worked under Professor William Grundman on site and development plans for the Calkins Nature Area.