Blog Contributor: Dr. Houck Medford
A real red letter day!
I remarked in one of my last columns that I almost hate to hear the phone ring.
The Foundation is perennially the bearer of good news; please consider what follows next as nothing but good news.
Our design team received new color proofs from the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles on Friday afternoon, March 20; the team called us this morning with their “final selection” on the correct color and we share the event with you today, Monday, March 23. They are now on their way back to Raleigh to get the presses rolling.
This many-month process has all been accomplished without medication prescribed for my pain. Thank every one of you for your patience and understanding!
(l-r) my dad, Phil Medford; Edward LaFountaine, retired major general of the U.S. Air Force and one of my closest friends from high school; George Ivey, a very successful former director of development for the Friends of the Smokies; myself; and Ken Wilson, former editor and publisher of the Waynesville Mountaineer and former chairman of the board of trustees, Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation.
I have always promoted the Parkway as a place where memories can be created and sustained, but it was not until a recent experience that I discovered for myself that they can be significantly amplified. Read more »
Soon after my wife and I were married in 1993, one of the first things that we did together was attend the “Naturalist Weekend” at Wildacres Reteat near Little Switzerland on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Imagine a weekend nature learning camp for adults and children where adults could be a child again? We were devotees for several years and life got busy and we ceased going. Read more »
Parkway Foundation contract designers have made selection from sample run by the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)
Today is Tuesday, February 26. For the last two weeks, any time the phone has rung, I have winced … for we have been flooded by calls … where’s our tag? Read more »
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.
