Friends Of The Mountains To Sea Trail – A Worthy Cause And Investment
Pictured from left to right, Houck Medford, executive director of the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation; Becky Smucker, president of the Carolina Mountain Club; Willa Mays, director of development for the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation; Jeff Brewer, president of the FMST; Don Walton, sectional trail chief for the Carolina Mountain Club; and Kate Dixon, executive director of FMST.
When I was growing up in Waynesville, it was easy to recognize and know the people that were doing things because that was all they talked about — and in this particular case it was a couple known by Doris (Dr. Doris) and Frank (Dr. Frank) Hammett. The perpetual topic was the Balsam Highlands Task Force without it’s other descriptors — more specifically the Balsam Highlands Task Force of the Friends of the Mountains to Sea Trail. Whew! I guess you are getting the picture but I grew up in the Balsams and they certainly seemed fine to me. Why would they even need a task force? I am convinced at this point of my life that the task was to join Dr. Doris in “combating the park service” and whoever else that might need to be “forced” or coerced to bend to her will to put a trail that was to have stretched from Clingman’s Dome in the Smokies to Jockey’s Ridge at Manteo exactly where she wanted it. Much of this trail was to be along the Blue Ridge Parkway. And her primary partner in this venture is the founder, mentor to Dr. Frank and Dr. Doris, and still going strong at the age of 83 Allen DeHart.
This group has made mountainous strides with enough “tasks forces”to blanket the state and now for the first time in its history, a full-time and very capable executive director, Kate Dixon.
Want to volunteer by building a trail, spending time on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and being associated with a wonderful group of people? FMST would be a great place to start.
