Verna Grahek Mize (1913-2013) was a pioneer in the environmental movement. In 1967 she initiated, and for several years led, a successful national citizen effort to stop the pollution of Lake Superior by the Reserve Mining Company of Silver Bay, Minnesota, which was totally owned by the Armco and Republic Steel Corporations. Her "Save Lake Superior" campaign, as she called it, based out of her home in Potomac, Maryland and the creation of the Save Lake Superior Association, a Minnesota-based environmental activist group, was a classic confrontation between citizens and powerful giants of industry. It brought the federal government, the states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and environmental groups into a lawsuit against Reserve Mining Company. It was the longest, most costly, most bitterly fought environmental case in history. As a result, the company was forced to end its discharge into Lake Superior.

In his book, "The Great Plains States of America," Neal R. Peirce wrote of Mrs. Mize's campaign as "an amazing demonstration of woman and citizen power." Over the course of her campaign, Verna Mize testified before the Subcommittee on the Environment of the Senate Commerce Committee. She made numerous radio appeals and television appearances, including Ted Koppel's "Nightline" on NBC in 1984. Verna was given the title, "First Lady of Lake Superior" by Michigan Governor William G. Milliken in 1975. She received an American Motors Corporation Conservation Award in 1976 "in recognition of exceptional service in the cause of conservation." She also received a U.S. Department of Commerce bronze medal award for "superior federal service." The people of her hometown, Houghton, honored her with a park dedicated in her name in 1981.