COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO: This handsome white rooster with the red comb crows the D&R Greenway’s fifth annual “Down to Earth Ball” on Saturday, June 1, from 6:30 to 11 p.m. at Barn Haven Farm in Hopewell. Get ready for a classy hoe-down with hayrides and cocktails and a celebrity auction.

For this year’s D&R Greenway Land Trust Ball, Linda Mead has once again come up with an ingenious fundraising idea to add interest to the Saturday, June 1 event. And, it is hoped, funding for more land preservation.

One year, Ms. Mead, the non-profit’s CEO and president, asked local architects to design and build bird houses for the now-traditional auction. Another year it was lanterns. This year, the Down to Earth Ball, will put live local celebrities under auctioneer Jud Henderson’s hammer.

Now don’t get me wrong, you don’t get to take home a celebrity, but you do get to take a walk or have dinner with your choice of congressman, author, farmer, scientist, and editor, among others.

Until this issue of Town Topics, the names of the participating celebrities have been kept under wraps. Below, we reveal the A-List of those who share Ms. Mead’s passion for preserving the rolling fields, farms, forests and wildlife of the region. Telephone bids can be made and the bidding starts at $500.

“Every time we do this event, I reach out to people and ask for their support,” says Ms. Mead. “And every time they say: ‘Yes. Absolutely.’”

Known as Princeton’s “classiest dress-down event of the season,” this year’s ball takes place at David Reynolds’s Barn Haven Farm, 111 East Prospect Street, Hopewell adjacent to the St. Michael’s Farm Preserve, on Saturday, June 1, from 6:30 to 11 p.m.

Besides the auction, there will be farm fun and games, prizes, and hayrides through St. Michael’s Farm Preserve until the sun goes down. Country rock will be provided by The Tone Rangers Band. The food will be farm fresh and locally grown and a new cocktail, the “St. Michael’s Sparkler” has been created especially for the event.

Since 1989, the D&R Greenway Land Trust has preserved 17,306 acres, including the Institute Woods, St. Michael’s Farm Preserve, and portions of the Sourland Mountains.

“This year’s Down to Earth Ball promises delights on many levels,” says Ms. Mead. “We are honored by every celebrity whose eager responses to our request to join us for the cause of preservation guarantee one-of-a-kind experiences.”

Raise Your Paddle

Those one-of-a-kind experiences will be walks and dinners with: U.S. Representative Rush Holt; best-selling author Richard Preston; Former EPA Chief and Commissioner of NJDEP Lisa Jackson; climate change expert Stephen Pacala; Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) Director Robbert Dijkgraaf; food and farming entrepreneurs Robin and Jon McConaughy with filmmaker Jared Flesher; Hollywood filmmakers Ken Carter and Annette Haywood-Carter; author Martha McPhee; decoy carver Pat Godin; and NBC medical correspondent Nancy Snyderman.

Depending on the individual being “auctioned off,” winning bidders may take up to ten people on a walk or a number of guests to dinner with their celebrity. So if you’ve had a hankering to know more about the history of the Institute or about string theory, Robbert Dijkgraaf’s your man. If you’re keen to pick the brains of a medical expert, Nancy Snyderman is your woman. If you’re fascinated by duck decoys and their history or about setting national environmental policies, now’s your chance.

Winners will also receive a variety of take home memorabilia: a signed book, professional photo, or some such special gift.

The Celebrities

Congressman Rush Holt has represented New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District since 1999. He will walk part of the wooded trail traversed by George Washington and his troops nearly 250 years ago.

Richard Preston, a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and the author of The Wild Trees,  will walk through the Sourlands Ecosystem Preserve.

Lisa Jackson, who was born in Philadelphia and raised in New Orleans and has directed multimillion-dollar cleanup operations, will share a festive Tapas and Spanish wine pairing in the Taverna at Mediterra.

Climate change expert Stephen Pacala, who directs the Princeton Environmental Institute, will walk Coventry Farm on the Great Road and the lands around historic Tusculum, the home of signer of the Declaration of Independence John Witherspoon.

A stroll in the Institute Woods with mathematical physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf will followed by a wine and cheese reception in the nearby home of former D&R Greenway trustee John Rassweiler.

Jon and Robin McConaughy of Double Brook Farm together with filmmaker Jared Flesher, the newly named editor of Edible Jersey Magazine, will walk St. Michael’s Farm Preserve, where the McConaughys lease 200 acres to graze cattle.

Ken Carter and Annette Haywood-Carter, whose feature film, Savannah, with Hal Holbrook and Sam Shepard, tells the true story of Ward Allen, an aristocrat with a passion for the land, and who have worked with the likes of Spielberg, DiCaprio, and Jolie, will share dinner prepared by chef Gary Giberson on Thursday, June 27, before a preview of Savannah in the Kirby Arts Center.

Novelist Martha McPhee, daughter of literary journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner John McPhee and the photographer Pryde Brown, will lead a walk through her childhood property in West Amwell, now permanently preserved by D&R Greenway, including the woods on Pryde’s Point Trail, followed by refreshments hosted by Pryde Brown on her deck.

World-class decoy carver, Pat Godin, will share a private catered dinner with the winning bidder and five friends.

Nancy Snyderman will walk at one of D&R Greenway’s prettiest and oldest preserves, Hopewell’s 116-acre Cedar Ridge.

To order tickets at $125 per person and/or to become an event sponsor, contact Leslie Potter, (609) 924-4646, ext. 121 or potter@drgreenway.org; or visit: www.drgreenway.org by Friday, May 24.