A.T. Hall of Fame 2025 Class

This episode is a panel discussion that took place during the 2025 A.T. Hall of Fame celebration, featuring the 2025 HoF Class and representatives. Featured are Dick Anderson, represented by Don Hudson; Walter Greene, represented by Janice Clain; Marion Park, represented by Jim Fetig and Ron Tipton. The moderators are Larry Luxenberg and Bill O'Brien of the Museum.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:07

This is a Trail of History, a podcast of the Appalachian Trail. A Trail of History tells the stories of the Appalachian Trail. It is a production of the Appalachian Trail Museum. The museum, located in South Central Pennsylvania, near the AT's midpoint, tells the stories of the founding, construction, preservation, maintenance, protection, and enjoyment of the trail since its creation. Today's episode is a panel discussion during the 2025 Hall of Fame celebration. It's an interview with the 2025 Hall of Fame inductees. The 2025 class is Dick Anderson, represented by Dawn Hudson, Walter Green, represented by Janice Klain, Marion Park, represented by Jim Fettig, and Ron Tipton. The moderators are Larry Luxemburg and Bill O'Brien of the AT Museum.

SPEAKER_08 1:06

I'm Larry Luxemburg, president of the AT Museum. Ron Tipton, who I think most of the people in the room know after his half century of service to the Appalachian Trail. Don Hudson is representing Dick Anderson from the IAT, and Don has been involved with the International Appalachian Trail since uh, I think the very first minute. Very first minute, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Janice Clain, and I'm here representing um Walter Green.

SPEAKER_08 1:42

Okay. So you're president of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club. So welcome everybody. I'm I'm gonna have each of the uh inductees or representatives give uh a brief um uh uh introduction and and then we'll we'll uh uh continue with some questions. Bill O'Brien is co-hosting this, but he's uh setting up uh uh an exhibit for Gene Espy in the main room. So when you go to the banquet later on, you'll be able to see that that exhibit for Gene Espy the second through hiker. So welcome everybody and and for the panelists. This microphone is uh for our recording, it doesn't carry to the room, so so you have to project uh to the room just just unaided. So so welcome. So, Ron, if you want to move over to this chair get the get started. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

Well, good morning everyone. Um I know most of the people in this room, and I have to say that this is a very special day in my life to be honored uh and uh uh for the A for the AT Hall of Fame and to be with the people that are here today. I've got some uh I've sort of got a speech ready for the induction ceremony, so I'm not gonna say this, I'm not gonna talk about, for example, a great moment with my beloved wife Rita Molineau, who's sitting over here. Um wave at everybody, Rita. Um we met, we had our first date 50 years from this coming January 9th. Um, and um uh she was living in my my condominium in Washington, D.C. while I was hiking in 1978. Um I'll just say a couple of things about um uh I've you know I've been involved with the AT since 1974 when I became a member of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, um became a life member, in fact, at for at the rate of $100 at 1975. Um and uh did um very actively and uh very active in maintenance and uh trail construction weekends, and uh I maintained uh a section of the AT for two different sections over a total of about 20 years. Um in fact, uh for those of you who hiked the trail, the Tick Farm, which is just north of Shenandoah National Park, and also uh the section of the of the trail up by Skyland in the park. Um and I I had my I won't go through my career stuff, but just to say that um I worked for a number of national national environmental and conservation organizations for more than 40 years, including quite a long bit of time at the Wilderness Society and at National Parks Conservation Association, where I met Cinda Waldbucer, who's sitting in the very back of this room. She is the new president CEO of ATC Incoming. Um and when I heard that Cinda had been chosen, I was ecstatic because I've worked with her, I knew her background, I knew how much she knew how to work with the National Park Service, and she also knew how to work with nonprofit organizations. And so I'm really excited about that. But you know, the the um other one other thing I'll mention now and then turn it over to my colleagues here is the um uh I applied to be uh the head of ATC in 2011, and um I was one of the two finalists, and I was not selected, and I was I I sort of thought I was going to be chosen, and um I in fact got a call from the recruiter. This is pretty unusual. I mean, the the day after the announcement, she said, I'm gonna tell you something. My firm and me thought that you were the odds-on favorite and should have been picked, and so I just let you know, even though we're not supposed to say stuff like that. Well, two years later, uh he didn't work out so well, and I was called all this out of the blue, and they said, Would you like the job now? And I went, you know, what in the world? Um uh, but it was my dream job. I mean, it was you know, to be able I live 50, we we I live 50 miles away from Harper's Ferry. I recruit I I commuted usually five times a day, different era than now. Um I loved driving into Harper's Ferry early on in the morning, especially when the through hikers were coming through. And it was just uh a wonderful time. I'll talk more about that later later. So let me stop and um uh and turn it over to our other panelists. Yeah, Don.

SPEAKER_05 6:50

Sure. Uh do you want do you need me to speak?

SPEAKER_03 6:53

I can move.

SPEAKER_08 6:54

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05 6:55

Let me do a little bit of dance.

SPEAKER_08 6:58

And and again, that's for the camera, not for the room, so you still need to project.

SPEAKER_05 7:03

Okay. Well, I'm gonna I'm going to do my best job of of channeling Dick Anderson. I should lower my voice having smoked all his life. He's got a great voice. And um, and I'll I'll just tell you how uh how I became involved uh and why I'm representing Dick. Um I have never walked the entire AT, though I've probably walked about half of it in probably half the jurisdictions in which it's located. Um but uh I spent most of my time in Maine. I'm an Arctic Alpine plant ecologist, and uh when Dick was finishing up his work in the Department of Conservation, he was the commissioner of the Department of Conservation now, the Department of Ag, Forestry and Conservation in the State of Maine. Um he took on a job to uh uh with the vision of returning caribou to the state of Maine. Um Dick's not here, so I can say it was a fool's errand, um, but he took the job and uh and ran the caribou reintroduction uh program, and it just so happened they had to apply to the Baxter State Park uh authority um to discuss the possibility of returning caribou to Baxter State Park. And I was on uh a nascent Baxter State Park Scientific Advisory Committee, and uh I went to the meeting at which Dick was proposing that caribou be returned to the park, and um one of the authority members said, Well, what'll happen if those caribou get to the top of the mountain? And what's gonna happen to the vegetation? And I said, Well, um they'll eat it, and well, what what will be the impact? And I said, Well, we we don't know because we actually no one's ever described that vegetation, so we don't have any we don't have any quantified information about how that vegetation is made up and whatnot, so there will be an impact and you won't be able to measure it. So um, and I sat down. And then a week later, I'd never met this guy before. The phone rings in my office.

unknown 9:33

Don!

SPEAKER_05 9:34

Dick Anderson here, and talking to me like he'd known me all his life, and I'm sure a number of you have had that same experience with Dick. Instant, fast friends, and he invited me to go on a trip to the Gas Bay, and I like to think the rest is history at that point. That was 1989, and um we uh I went on that trip to see caribou at high elevation in the Shickshock Mountains with Dick. We went there in a helicopter, um, which was great. I know why botanists live longer than than um uh big mammal biologist, because the big mammal biologists take helicopters to go to the top of the mountains. Botanists walk to the top of the mountain. And so um uh fast forward five years, another call, it's Friday night, the 16th of October, 1993. Dawn! Hello, Dick. You gotta meet me at the at the what what is it, the Front Street Delhi in Bath, Maine, tomorrow morning at nine. Oh great, why? I'll tell you when you get there. And I got there, and of course, he's in the very last booth, and and he's looking around to make sure nobody else has seen. He rolls out a map, and it's got little blue uh uh Denison sticky dots running from what is apparently Catahdin. The map had no names on it. It was just mountain range, and all the way up to the gas bay, and he had these little blue sticky dots all the way.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

And he said, What do you think? We're gonna extend the Appalachian Trail to the end of the Gas Bay.

SPEAKER_05 11:20

And I said, Jeez, that's a great idea, Dibbert. They're gonna hate it. And um, and I was right. It was a great idea, and at least initially it was not embraced until Dave Startsel called Dick the morning after we, the morning of our announcement of the trail on Earth Day in 1994, we worked on it, pulled together folks from New Brunswick, folks from Quebec, and made the announcement. And Joe Brennan, former Governor Joe Brennan, read this wonderful statement that Dick had written because it was Dick's idea, and um Dave Starzel called Dick within hours, maybe two hours, and said, Dick, just call it a connecting trail. Forget this extension. You're never going to be able to extend the trail. It's a national park. It would make take an act of Congress to change the dimensions of it. So just call it a connecting trail. And from that, from the next day, the second day of the project, we called the International Appalachian Trail a connecting trail, and the rest is history. So that's why I'm here representing Dick, and that's how Dick got us into this mess.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

What happened with the caribou? It died.

SPEAKER_08 12:54

I think we're overloaded with uh Mayners today.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

That's awesome. That was gonna be part of what I was gonna say. Um, my name is Janice Klain, and I'm currently president of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club. I'm really out of my element here. Um I feel like a newbie to the Appalachian Trail compared to a lot of you guys. I got into working on the Appalachian Trail because I'm a teacher and I'm I'm using my teacher voice, sort of. But but I taught high school students for 50 plus years, and in the course of that, um, and getting interested in hiking, and I love everything about Maine, and that's why I'm so proud that there are two people who are associated with Maine that are going to be inducted. Um so I like history, I like Maine, I grew up, I am a native Mainer, unlike many of the transplants. And many of those transplants that we're dealing with right now in the Maine Appalachian Trail Club came to Maine because they were working for the Maine Appalachian Trail Club, and they fell in love and just stayed. So I started a hiking club, and I got kids, I'd take 20 kids, 25 kids, out onto a trail anywhere in a 50-mile radius of Bangor, Maine. And after doing that for a number of years and being the kind of teacher that I am, I said, I I need to get to give back to the trail. Many of you came to the trail to give back to it because of your own hiking experiences or because you knew somebody who was involved with the trail. So I I talked to a colleague of mine and I said, How do I get into onto the trail crew? And he said, You'll never get onto the AT trail crew, but you can get uh perhaps get into the uh to the Baxter State Park volunteer trail crew, and oh, by the way, that is supervised by Lester Kenway, who is also the the supervisor for the Maine Appalachian Trail Club. So sure enough, I I contacted Lester and Elsa, and the next thing I knew I was volunteering in Baxter Park. After doing that a couple of years, and and Lester knew me well enough, um I asked about working with the Maine Appalachian Trail Club, and that that was in 2001. I had to get one of my students to write me a recommendation because going through ATC you had to do that. Once I had my my credentials established with Lester and with the other members of the of MATC, I would just say, I want to come out and work with the trail crew such and such a week, and they would put me on. The way our organization works, and I suspect it's the same with uh a lot of your organizations, if you show some energy and your new blood, um they they keep asking you to do more. So uh that's how I wind up with this. Um I came here uh because la probably April, Dave Field, who many of you know, um called me and said, Hey Janice, we're uh we're going to have uh Walter Green is going to be inducted in the Hall of Fame, and he has no relatives. He lived, he he died in 1941. Um and and I've got a little speech for later on about him and what the connection is. Clearly, I never knew I never met the man. But you've all seen the picture, or many of you have seen the pictures of him with his with his big basket and and his tools, and he was out um blazing and and laying out the trail in the section where I do a lot of my work. So amongst the things that I do for uh for MATC, and what got me more even more involved, again, we have a lot of people, and they're mostly men in the Manapalaan Trail Club, who when you say, What about this, they'll say, Okay, but what about this as well? So I saw an ad in the the um club newsletter for a register box monitor, and I contacted the man who at that point was our club president, Don Stack. And next thing I knew, he's calling me and saying, uh, I got another job. We need somebody to supervise the ridge runner at Gulf Hagas. It's an easy job. You you only have to you only have to help set up a camp and visit a couple of times. So the rest is history, and that's how I ended up here. Um Walter Green apparent uh from what I've read and I've seen stuff about him in a lot of different places, um spent his summers on Sebec Lake, which was right near where I grew up. But he lived in a little village, which I checked on Google a week or so ago. Still still exists, about 150 people in the town, but he liked to explore. And again, we'll save some of that for for later on. Um in the back, I don't know if you can all see it. Tony Barrett a week or so ago, talked to Dave Field. Dave said, Janice is going to the induction, and Tony said, Well, so am I, and so he contacted me. So each year our club uh selects a an uh an award recipi uh a recipient for the Walter Green Award, and they're nominated by people in the club. They cannot be somebody that's on the executive committee, um, and they are nominated for special service, outstanding service above and beyond the normal maintaining. Um at the time that that Tony was recognized, he had been on the executive committee, and Tony has done a lot for our club uh with regards to landscape protection, whether it was from wind farms, these days, solar farms. So Tony was nominated, I don't remember by whom, and he was awarded the the Walter Green uh award. And so Tony schlepped this award down here um from Maine this this week, and then he's gonna take the the walking stick back so that I don't have to deal with people on the in the airline with trying to smuggle it on board. And the rest is history.

SPEAKER_08 20:05

Well thank you. Um so I want to get into a little more depth with um get into a little more depth with with each of you. Ron, I I remember many years ago um you saying that you were surprised that the Appalachian Trail became so much a part of your career. And I'm I'm curious how you got started with the AT, how you envisioned your career, and and then how it got so involved with the AT for a half century, right?

SPEAKER_03 20:47

Um it started in 1972 when I began to um uh I was in law school, but I started doing a lot of hiking and then right after that backpacking. And um uh what I really remember is I did a did a trip, a four-day trip in Southern Virginia, backpacking trip, and we finished and and I noticed, you know, that on the third and fourth day I felt really great. And and I see a sign that says this was in the near Mount Rogers and said, you know, no uh you know, Mount Katahdin, I think it's a you know 1400 miles or whatever, and I thought, I just I would so much like to stay on this trail. I'm here on Monday morning, I've got to go back to work. Why can't I just keep hiking? So I I made the decision to do a through hike because I got a phone call from uh one of my college friends who I hadn't talked to in years, and this was in uh this was in the winter of 1978, and he said, you know, I'm gonna hike the Appalachian Trail this this spring. And I said his name is Joe. I said, Really? I said, and I I just I hadn't even really thought much about it. And then I went to bed and I couldn't go to sleep. And I said, I want to do that. I called him the next day and said, You want a partner? And the rest is history. So I did the trail. And from there, I came back, and my next job was being a National Parks Program Director for the Wilderness Society. But I was able with that job to continue to be an advocate for the AT with in Congress and with the federal agencies. And so that you know that inspired me professionally and personally to stay involved with the trail, particularly with the protection of the trail, and then thinking in a larger context, and I'll mention this this afternoon, but uh when I became the the head of ATC and about two years into my dream job, I said, you know, this trail is almost all now, it's almost all quote protected. I mean, we were we just had a very few miles that were still on public roads, and that was usually where you cross a highway bridge or you were coming out of a small town. I mean, the trail, the corridor itself was an incredible land acquisition uh uh program that the Park Service and the Forest Service and dozens of federal and state agencies did. But I said, what about that larger landscape? I mean, we are the we are the premier hike long-distance hiking trail in the world, you could argue, but look at some, look at we're very well protected in some places, but try going across, you know, central Pennsylvania or you know, northern Virginia, where at that time it was a 11-mile walk on the road. But the point was, what are we going to do to protect the vistas, the scenery, the natural resources, the wildlife? And so I talked with the National Park Service uh superintendent in 2015. We launched the Appalachian Trail Landscape Partnership. And I'm still involved with the partnership, and um it's it's um it's made great success, you know, it's made great progress. We have close relationships with the Appalachian Mountain Club, with the Open Space Institute, with um uh you know, with the Trust Republic Land, the Conservation Fund, local local conservation groups, land trust groups, and so on. And it's you know, to me, it it's the you know, if I had to say, well, what one thing did you get involved with that you think was most important, it was probably that. So I'll stop there and save a a bit for later on.

SPEAKER_08 24:42

So um a second question for you, Ron. Um you you've been very involved with the Appalachian Uh Trail Conservancy for many years, but also uh are credited as one of the founders of ALDA. Um to me that's like uh being a member of the Hatfield and the McCoys. And how how how did you how did how did you fit into both?

SPEAKER_03 25:09

Well, as I recall, and uh uh Larry correct me, I think we had a meeting. Um the way this organization, Alda, was created was we had a weekend meeting at Harper's Ferry. Um, and I'm thinking it was 1983. Yeah, maybe. Is that right? Yeah. Got it.

SPEAKER_08 25:30

So um, you know, whatever Warren says on that right, right.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

You know, so so and and yeah, at that and certainly at that time, um, there was a number of people representing ATC that were in that discussion. And I will say that for for most of history, the two organizations have have worked very well collaboratively, and they still do in in a number of ways. But um, I you know I think that um you know ALDA is is is about you know connecting with the hikers, and the ATC is involved in primarily protection of the trail, management of the trail with the 30, what's it, 31 clubs now? Um and so the f the focus is a bit different. And there, you know, we we've we've had some great we've had some great debates and discussions about all aspects of the AT, you know, um, and the and its history, you know, with ALDA, and um, and I hope to continue that you know that in a positive way.

SPEAKER_08 26:37

So um one more question for for you, Ron, and then um we'll diversify the the load here a bit. Um so so I think now you would be eligible for membership in the old pros, but you were a member for a long time. Tell us about the old pros and how you got involved.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

Marty Domini, where are you? Stand up. Okay, there's Mark Mart, here the old pros, and then I'm gonna add one thing. No, I'll add one thing at the end. I'm gonna come back. I got something to say two minutes about supporting the ATC, but I won't do that now. So here we are in let's see, 1981, I believe. And several, um, Ed Garvey, um, Dave Sherman, people that, you know, these are people that two of the people, Ed Garvey everybody knows, and Dave Sherman most people know, they're sitting in this room. Um, and I and a guy named George Owen. We were doing a hundred-mile backpack in southern in southern um North Carolina. Um and um the the first full day we get to uh we get to the first shelter in North Carolina as you're walking from Georgia. Um and it's it's sleeting. And we're scheduled to go 13 miles, and I'm I'm pretending I'm the leader of this group, but you can't lead this group. So uh we get there, we've walked about six miles, it's about 40 degrees, and it's still sleeting. And I said, I kept saying, now guys, we can only stay here, you know, for half an hour, and we've got to keep moving, we got another seven miles to go. A couple through hikers walk in, it's in April, and we start talking, and I start keep saying, Well, you know, we got to move on. And one of the guys takes out his sleeping bag, you know, and it just becomes you know a clear ritual that they're not going anyplace. So we spent the night, and um uh I did a couple of dumb things. Uh, one of them is I was trying to cook from lying within my sleeping bag, and I have one of those little stoves, and I knocked it over, and and uh the next thing you know, I could have I could have had the uh the uh the shelter uh you know burned down, but fortunately I wasn't. So we get to the next morning, and um the the two guys, young guys, get up and eat their oatmeal and they're getting ready to go leave, and they said, Um, oh, and at one point they asked us a question about you guys, and they said, Yeah, we've been doing this and this, and we were really a bunch of old pros. And so they heard that and they thought, oh, that's cute. So the next morning as they're getting ready to leave, they look at us and they say, Well, thanks. It was so great to be with you guys, to be with the old pros. And the one thing we will say is it tells us that if you guys could hike the whole trail, we can too.

SPEAKER_08 29:33

Okay, um Don, uh a question for for you. Um and and I believe are you are you still uh co-chair of the IAT?

SPEAKER_05 29:46

Of the of our loosely connected international consortium, yes.

SPEAKER_08 29:52

Okay, good. Um so how did you get from uh Cap Gas Bay to Morocco? How do we get from Cap Gas Bay to Marocco?

SPEAKER_05 30:00

Well, um uh it goes back to the speech that Dick wrote for Joe Brennan to read at the press conference um about um thinking beyond borders and uh connecting common landscapes and shared values. I don't think he read Benton Mackay's uh paper that was published in a in a archaeolog uh in an architectural journal uh in 1925, I think it was. Um but there but there was a lot of it that rang true in Dick's speech. And um I think what happened, the the way it happened was um, I'll tell you, um we were on the shores of the of the uh famous Restigoosh River outside Kedgwick, uh New Brunswick. Uh we were having our fall meeting. At that point, we we all worked together and we was about six of us each from Maine, New Brunswick, and Quebec. And we met on a quarterly basis in those days. And uh we were meeting for our fall meeting um at an outfitter's lodge on the shores of the uh the rest bouche, and um two guys from Newfoundland came to the meeting. And um Dick knew that they were gonna come. A bunch of us had heard that these guys were gonna crash our meeting, and um they came to the meeting, and they proposed um for all the reasons that we had spoken on day one that Newfoundland qualified. And and it came right down to bedrock geology and uh and then all the other human values um that they represented as a community of hikers in and uh in Newfoundland. And so on that day in November we said a number of people objected, saying, How can you have a trail that goes over the water? And we just put blinders on to that. We didn't address that. We just said that's a good idea, and this is a story, this trail is a story about relationships, about connections, shared, in this case, shared geology. And and um so Newfoundland joined, and um two years later, this is how we get to Morocco, that's how we get to Newfoundland. Two years later, we have the 10th anniversary meeting, again, it's back in New Brunswick, um in June, on the shores of uh, in this case, the Tobeek River, and um which flows into the Woolestock, otherwise known as the St. John. Uh, and we're on the shores of the Tobique, and a new representative from Maine attends his very first meeting. His name is Walter Anderson. He was at that time uh retired uh Maine State geologist, and Walter uh engaged everyone there about uh geologic heritage in particular, and began to uh congratulate us for a project that really uh in his mind was one of the best ways to tell anybody about the way uh the earth works from a dynamic uh perspective and a geologic dynamic perspective. And um and because Walter began to prepare maps for us that showed where all these remnants of ancient Appalachian Mountains, Pangean Mountains, there really isn't a name for them. Um so we've made a couple of names up for them, the ancient Appalachian Range, which spanned Pangaea when there was a single continent, one of the times there was a single continent on Earth. And um and he developed um materials for us to take to all the meetings and to ATC meetings, and um it just so happened that two geologists from the British Geological Survey in Scotland attended a Geological Society of America regional meeting that was held in Portland, Maine, in two in March of 2009. And these two young geologists um took um an early version of this business card, which is a um two business cards plugged together, and um had a map, not this map, but a similar map, and they took it back to their boss in Edinburgh. And the next day the boss reads the email address of Dick Anderson and sends him an email and said, Um, would you guys be willing to come to Scotland and talk to us about this idea? We're having similar conversations here about how our mountains are just like the mountains underneath the very famous Appalachian Trail. And we want our communities to be able to say, Hey, we got a connection to the AT. And so um uh Dick approached Roxanne Quimby, who, um, as many of you know was the person who acquired the land that has become the National Monument east of Basher State Park. And Dick was on her board of directors for the Quimby Family Foundation at the time, and he approached her and said, Hey Roxanne, I know we got a special fund for special projects, and and I got a really good special project here. And so Roxanne bought our airplane tickets, and we went to Scotland and we met with county councils, two county councils, one in Fort William and in and uh one farther north, and those folks were standing up uh geoparks, which at the time was a separate uh European Union project and not what it is now, which is a uh a UN uh sanctioned activity. They were setting up geoparks and they wanted the trails in their they were asking if the trails in their geoparks could have an association through this shared geology. And of course he said yes. Why not? And again, i I I think for Dick in particular, and this is about Dick, this isn't about anybody else but Dick, for Dick, it really was um um sort of um a part of a vision that he he mean, he tells me I probably once a week he he he'll call me up and say, Can you believe it, Don? Can you believe this has actually happened? That it was 30 years ago that we sat on Front Street. I mean he he reminds me over and over and over again. And I think for him it's it it's really is the the his words which were similar to Benton Mackay's words in envisioning a trail and what a trail could do for communities. Those folks in Scotland wanted economic development. They have the lowest population density in all of Europe in Northwest Scotland. Those little towns are dying on the vine. And they need every little bit of something special that they can have. And they just thought a connection to the AT would be the cat's pajamas. If they could say they had a relationship to the Appalachian Trail, the grandmother, most famous long-distance trail in the world, they knew it. And um then uh this trail that connected to that trail would would help them economically. And so um I think that's probably and that's and then and then everybody else wanted to, they heard about that, and then everywhere else there was a trail in a in a rural part of northwestern Europe said, oh geez, we we we want to participate too. And the French Rambler Association got in touch, and you know, anyway, it it happened.

SPEAKER_08 39:29

So today we're at 25 countries and a prospective 10,000 miles out of the no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_05 39:36

I think it's I think it's 13 countries, three continents. Um uh and I've got to tell you that I I was talking to Will French on the drive down yesterday. It's not easy keep we talk about herding cats. We don't have a common organization, we don't have a shared treasury. We'd need we'd need treaties between countries, we'd need a UN charter to create a single organization that you could run. And and and and and direct people, we've given up the idea of having anything more than the people who are in those countries and want to have an association with this idea. Um we have it's a pretty low bars for saying your trail can participate. And I think we've got to recognize that the IAT really isn't a long-distance trail, it's a community of people with shared values, and and they come and go. Currently, we're struggling with New Brunswick. Um, Canadians like to fund their trail maintenance through government, and New Brunswick is the poorest province in Canada, and um they're currently trying to figure out how they're gonna keep the IAT open. But you know, it comes and goes in all these places, and somebody if if the idea is gonna survive, um, I think we'll have to just uh allow the community, the larger shared international community, um license to make it work the way it works best for them.

SPEAKER_07 41:17

We only have a few minutes left. Jim Fedick has joined the panel to talk about Marion Park, so why don't you go ahead?

SPEAKER_06 41:25

Yeah, please, Jim. Thank you. Um I'm Jim Feddick, I'm the president of PATC, and I'm speaking on behalf of Marion Park, and I'll tell you a little bit about her story. You know, in terms of at least PATC and the trail itself, everybody knows the story of the founding fathers, Benton Mackay and Myron Avery. And Avery is a central figure here. Uh he founded PATC in 1927 out of uh several with several of his friends from the Washington Wildflower Protection Society. Uh but what nobody knows is what the role of the founding mothers was. And there are many of them uh throughout the trail, but in particular with PATC. So while Avery and his buddies were off blazing and doing whatever they wanted to do, it was the women who built the club, kept it together, and did the hard work. Is that not unfamiliar to people? Um of the first things you notice when you look at our archives is how many women are in the pictures from that time. There are always more women than men, mostly. Uh can't use an absolute like that, but I'll tell you the majority of the pictures there are more women than men out in the field working. And I'm not talking about picnicking, I'm talking about they've got loppers in their hands and picks and shovels and those kinds of things. I think that may be from the genesis of the Washington Wildflower Protection Society, but it doesn't matter. They were there, and their role has not always been remembered, and that's why it's it's so important today that we talk about Marion Park. Marion joined PATC in 1933, and she became Avery's closest associate. She started out by editing the club newsletter. Um she eventually became the club secretary in a sense that that wasn't the she was the real secretary of the of the organization, not just Avery's admin assistant. She and Jean Stevenson played a very critical role as the office staff, though, and sometimes typing as many as 20 letters a day for Avery. So that gives you some insight into Avery's personality also. Today we call it spam. By nineteen forty one, she replaced Arlene James as the ATC secretary while simultaneously remaining. PATC secretary. She served in this dual role until 1955. That's 14 years. For 20 years, she was also one of Avery's key lieutenants in the field, helping to scout Lop and Blaze right alongside everybody else. That's not known hardly at all. And the key thing is when Avery took his wheel and assigned to the top of Catain to establish the northern terminus, she was there. She was part of that crew that went up to do that. Now, as often happens in the club today, and I see people in this room that I know that have influence far beyond where they live or where they volunteer and so on and so forth. Her influence extended a long way. She also founded the Maine Appalachian Trail Club and served as its treasurer for 20 years. And that is a legacy and a story to be told. I want to read you something here. A friend of mine, a Maine writer named Tom Ricks, who used to be a Washington Post reporter, he wrote a book recently. It's just been published called Nobody's Coming to Save You. And in that book, there's a phrase or a couple sentences that I think that matter here. Humans are the only animal that uses fire. And the only one that uses narrative. So the most human activity in the world may be the telling of stories around a campfire. So here's hoping that Marion Parks' story will be told around campfires on the AT for generations to come.

SPEAKER_08 45:41

Yeah, thanks, uh Jim. And uh Ron, I I I see you writing. Um do you have some uh additional remarks?

SPEAKER_03 45:50

I have two things. First of all, um our grandson and his mother and uh and and and the sister and and our grandson's sister have all joined us, and Oliver's gonna start hiking um certainly by his third birthday. Um the um um the other thing I wanted to mention, and by the way, our our son, who was just here for a minute, he hiked his age in miles each year till he became 12 and he started playing lacrosse. So every year we'd go, okay, it's 11 miles this year, right? Um, and you know, we would do it. Um one thing I just want to say quickly, and I'll talk about this later. I I I have gotten very involved again with ATC. Um, and um uh I am now just as of the last couple weeks, this is our hundredth anniversary, um, and we have a something called the the Centennial Um Centennial Advisory Committee, which I'm now the co-chair, and we have a goal, this is an ATC goal, of raising $50 million over five years. Now, of that $25 million is money that we were expecting to come in from private funds, but the other $25 million is we is what we're we're matching. We're at end of year two, um, and we have we are now at a total of between $35 and $36 million. We received a $5 million grant from a foundation, a family foundation, um just came in in the last the Dunlevy Foundation. Um, and it's real we've really and this this is really uh and we've just got a new brochure that tells you exactly how this money is going to be distributed. So I just bring this up because I am now the co-chair and that we are there are donors that are sitting in this room. Thank you very much. But if you're interested in contributing in any way possible, please let me know and um we will be happy to talk.

SPEAKER_08 47:52

Okay, um thanks Ron. We have uh about five minutes left. Um any questions from the audience? So um if if not maybe each of you could um you know give give an additional minute uh summary. And and my understanding was that uh New Englanders were laconic, so let's see if that's true. Uh Don, you want to start off?

SPEAKER_05 48:27

Um well I I should probably tell you all that um Dick is really sorry that he couldn't be here. It's just not possible. Um he's uh he's approaching um he's approaching 91. Yeah, 91. I thought it was 91. It was 91. Um we're gonna have a party for him on December 5th, and we're gonna have a kind of um of a redo of this ceremony and celebrate his induction at a place called Ocean View in Fallon, Maine. Um we're also gonna celebrate Walter Anderson at the same time. Walter is gonna be 96 in February. And so Walter is gonna be uh the recipient of what will eventually become, the first recipient of what will eventually become the Anderson Thinking Beyond Borders Award. So we'll present to Dick on on Friday, the 5th of December, um his walking stick, and I'll share with that crowd um what this ceremony and what the day has was like and whatnot, and then we'll also give an award to Walter. And um I know Dick Um recognizes this as an amazing honor, and um maybe we'll try to capture his words and send them back.

SPEAKER_08 50:00

Right. And Janice, maybe you can tell us um you know why you picked Walter Green for that award and how much he means to the club.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

I I can't really, because that was long before my time. Um that's been going on since well before I became involved with the club. But I will say um it's really interesting in in listening here how much of a role the Maine Appalachian Trail Club and the AT in Maine have played. Part of that is due to Myron Avery, because if it hadn't been for him, the trail would have stopped at Mount Washington. But um when you hear all the people here that have been involved with the Maine Appalachian Trail Club and listening to Don talk about Dick Anderson, I I've never met Dick. I just remember that for years he um organized a winter social and in and it was in Freeport and and it was always during teachers' school February vacation, so I never got a chance to go. But there must be something about the main Appalachian Trail Club that keeps people living a long, long time. So we have people like John Neff, who I think the last time he climbed Catain was for his 90th birthday. For many years maintained the section of the Hunt Trail. Um our latest newsletter has an article, has a couple of articles by Steve Clark, who is also a member of the the Hall of Fame. And you could go online and find this. He wrote this nice little article for this um edition about he and his then wife doing a maintenance job in the late 50s, and this woman wearing jeans and carrying a bedroll and and wearing sneakers came by. She apparently never introduced herself, but they ended up taking her into town for a meal and then put her back on the trail. So grandma Gatewood. Um we have Dave Field. Uh I was at the VLM in in um August, and some of the clubs were talking about uh term limits. We can't we can't replace Dave Field. If you want to know anything about Myron Avery and his correspondence, you contact Dave Field. He he has it all. And he's in at least his mid-80s. So um that just attests to the the staying power of people that are involved with with the abolition trail.

SPEAKER_08 52:48

Oh, Ron, uh any additional remarks?

SPEAKER_03 52:51

I would just the only thing I would say, because I know we're Bill's back there saying telling us it's time to move on, is you know, the best thing about my job at ATC, and this would apply, I think, to volunteers as well, was to be able to go out and hike. I could I, you know, I I knew I knew when the through hikers were coming through certain places. So I would hike south when they're coming north and not tell them who I am and have this, you know, 25 or 30 through hikers. Talk to them, you know, and ask them, are you tell me tell me about your hike, tell me about what's what's what's good about the trail, tell me about things that you think could be good, get give me honest answers. I want to know. And rarely did we ever get to the point where I would tell them who I was, but when they and when they did, it was oh my god, we gotta take a photo of you. Um but but it was what I heard, this is the important thing, because you hear a lot about oh, people smoking pot and they're doing this and they're growth groups and they're you know, they're just out, you know, messing around the trail and sitting in shelters. You know, I 90% or more of the through hikers that I talk to said, I'm having a great experience. You know, that's it's this is a wonderful thing, and it's it's what it's it's what I thought it would be. And yeah, there's some people that smoke dope, but you know, they usually stay on their own.

SPEAKER_06 54:12

So I know why Mainers live so long, it trails so hard. You get so much exercise. Exactly. There's no question about it. It's also my favorite place on the AT. What I'd say about us, we're about to celebrate our centennial uh in 19 in 2027. And we've done some preliminary planning, we'll do the real serious planning uh here this year. Uh, but we're gonna celebrate it with our partners and with all the other we'll try to get everybody involved to a certain extent. We're one of the original clubs. Uh our founders played a disproportionate role in the founding of the trail. Uh nobody knows in Washington, nobody knows who the heck we are. So we've got to solve that problem, and so on and so forth. But the idea is that it's really a national treasure, and we just want to make sure that people know that.

SPEAKER_08 55:05

So let's let's have a round of applause for the event.

SPEAKER_02 55:26

Please visit our physical museum located in South Central Pennsylvania within Pine Grove Furnace State Park between Carlisle and Gettysburg. We are open each year from April through October. We schedule many special events throughout the year. For complete information, visit our website at Appalachian Trail.museum. You can also follow us on several social media sites. We want this to be an interactive podcast. If you have ideas for topics we ought to cover or people we ought to interview, please let us know. Contact us at atmpodcast at gmail.com. The music for this podcast is courtesy of Randy Wintalker Motes, a great friend of the museum. Wintalker passed away in early 2026. We thank Win Talker and his surviving spouse, Georgia Harris. For the AT Museum, I'm Jim Foster.