News Room

Report of the Honorary Membership Committee During the Biennial Membership Meeting of ATC

Castleton, Vermont (July 20, 2009) - The Bylaws of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy provide for a singular award, at the discretion of the Board.  It is called "Honorary Membership," a singularly modest category for what it applauds—"an individual who has made a distinguished contribution to the Appalachian Trail project."

Over the roughly 45 years that this Award has been given, fifty one men and women have been granted it—for service that, as the Bylaws put it, "shall have had an inspirational or exemplary effect because of its special quality or character or innovative aspects, rather than be service of a conventional nature performed in a superior manner….”

"The service shall have been of considerable duration, demonstrating a long-term commitment to the Trail and Conservancy," the Bylaws add.

It probably will surprise no one that virtually all of ATC'S Honorary Members have come from the ranks of managers—whether from service on the Board and committees, leadership in a federal agency that has been at the core of trail-protection efforts, a pivotal role in trail-maintenance techniques, or some other more or less official role.

Today, that changes—not the superlative service and the dedication to the trail project but more the nature of the audience…and the reach of that voice about the trail…and what the trail has meant to less involved people for more than eight decades.

We could read for you from a stack of praises…for the effect this person has had…that stack would be from, shall I say, "regular" sources.  But it happened that a particularly poignant one came in the mail to Harpers Ferry a few weeks ago…from a prisoner in Illinois.

This young man killed someone while driving drunk.  He notes that he now has lots of time for reflection on what he calls "experiences in my life that have left me spiritually dead.  Because of this, I've begun to read books on meditation and eastern philosophies, but nothing has quite captured my attention like [this] book…  I have read the book cover to cover, pausing many times to imagine myself, free, on the trail.  Vicariously, I have suffered the weather, the hunger, and the insects.  But, I have also enjoyed the long hikes, with all the challenges and triumphs along the way."  Most impressive has been, he said, the way the trail experience has improved individual's lives, lives he learned about reading this book.

I don't believe our honoree has heard that story before.  But he certainly has heard the story of "number a-2."

The meticulous author of that inspiring history book took a similar—but not necessarily as effective—approach last summer to the dismantling of the old earl Shaffer shelter for eventual reassembly and display.  Every log, every stick, every board had a code and a number.  Photos were taken—including some of our honoree carrying logs to the truck.

When everything got to storage…, log number a-2 was nowhere to be found.  He proclaims his innocence, but some of his friends know what their future holds—either a new committee called "the a-2 roundtable" or, at the very least, a fund-raising letter to help find log number a-2.

Anonymous donors gladly accepted.

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We at ATC are fond of reminding ourselves and others that volunteers are and have been forever the soul of the Trail, the one indispensable part of this amazing project.  There is another truth, less often stated—without hikers, the Appalachian Trail would just be a biological, perhaps a historical, curiosity.

Our honoree has spent the better part of two decades working with our support, but still outside the official ATC parameters, to unite those two truths.

A 1980 Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, he soon began working on a book—not about his own hike, but about the broad community of A.T. hikers through the years—and the maintainers and land-acquisition pioneers who have provided the place within which their adventures took place.  The result was the unparalleled “Walking the Appalachian Trail”, published in 1994.  It is a collection of their stories, from interviews and histories published and unpublished.

It is personal history that remains far more accessible to readers and A.T. fans than the only previous such effort, the two-volume, hard-cover collection published in the 1970s by Rodale Press.

In the process, like Benton MacKaye biographer Larry Anderson and trail historians Guy and Laura Waterman, he contributed immeasurably to the early organization of the ATC archives and brought numerous historical facts and sources to the attention of the Conservancy staff and editors.

Not long after that project was completed, he conceived of an Appalachian Trail museum that would preserve and display, for public edification—not only the more memorable tales of the Trail’s more noted hikers—but also the efforts behind the Trail and its management since the 1920s.

No aspect of the broad A.T. community would be excluded.  He reached out to all partners in developing what became the Appalachian Trail Museum Society.  On its board are representatives of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association, with less formal active support from a number of A.T. clubs.

Some here might remember that a concept of a series of small museums was included in the ATC strategic plan in 2003, when it called for partnership centers along the Trail—largely because of his "consciousness-raising" for the better part of a decade.

The museum society’s first exhibit is now a hallmark of the ATC Visitors' Center in Harpers Ferry.  Earlier this year, the museum acquired its first true home, a leased building on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania’s Pine Grove Furnace State Park, virtually the midpoint of the footpath.  When it opens next year, it will be but the next step forward in an effort that promises to promote and support the Trail project to the general public for decades to come.

We believe that all his contributions internal to ATC and in bringing the museum concept to life constitute significant service that has "had an inspirational or exemplary effect because of its special quality or character or innovative aspects"—bearing upon the Trail as a whole.

For his effective, long-term commitment to the Trail and Conservancy, the Board of Directors is pleased to award Honorary Membership in ATC to Larry Luxenberg of New City, New York.