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Outdoors
Smoky Mountain News
from federal, state and local government. But others had enough desire for its manifestathat collaboration “would speed us toward tion to devote their lives to making it reality. previously undreamed of recreation goals.” If Last week, MST leaders and enthusiasts other states followed suit, one day those sepafrom across the state converged on Lake rate state trails could link together to form a Junaluska for Friends of the MST’s annual larger, national trail. Gathering of Friends, a four-day event this Lee “surprised perhaps even hardcore outyear commemorating the trail concept’s 45th doorsmen” with the proposal, Clark wrote. anniversary on the same stage where it was originally proposed on Sept. 9, 1977. “I see myself as someone who does not see N IDEA WITH MOMENTUM things as they are and simply ask, ‘Why?’” Howard Lee, who first proposed the concept Lee even surprised the governor. 45 years ago, told the crowd filling Shackford “A cabinet secretary does not go out and Hall Saturday, April 9. “I’ve always dreamed make proposals without clearing them with of things that have never been and asked, the governor’s office,” Lee said April 9. “I had ‘Why not?’” Now 88, Lee was in his early 40s when he made his infamous speech at Lake Junaluska. But his “why not?” attitude began much earlier, when he was a Black child growing up under Jim Crowe oppression in Georgia. “I’d go to the segregated high school, sit at a used desk using used books and people would say, ‘I don’t know why you’re getting an education. You’re not going to get a decent job. You’re never going to be hired at a high-level position, and you’re never going to be able to rise higher in society,’” he said. “My question was always, ‘Why not?’” Lee proved the detractors of his younger years wrong, earning a A 1977 article in The Mountaineer reports on Howard master’s degree at UNC Chapel Hill Lee’s speech proposing the MST. Haywood County Library photo and then becoming the city’s mayor in 1969. After unsuccessful runs for Congress not cleared this through Gov. Hunt’s office.” in 1972 and lieutenant governor in 1976, he He probably wouldn’t have done it at all if found political success as a state senator in not for Jim Hallsey, who was seven years into 1990. But before that — just one year after his tenure with DENR at the time, and losing the lieutenant governor race — Gov. speechwriter Steve Meehan. They asked him Jim Hunt appointed him secretary of what to insert lines in the speech proposing the was then called the Department of trail, and while it didn’t appeal to Lee at first, Environment and Natural Resources, making the more they talked about it the more enthuhim the first Black man in the South to hold a siastic he became. state cabinet seat. “I made the proposal thinking, ‘It’ll go The appointment would prove transforaway. It won’t last,’” Lee said. “It just hapmational for Lee, but he almost turned it pened that a reporter from the Asheville down. He’d wanted to lead the Department of newspaper was in the audience, and I was told Health and Human Services. He had no interthat a big article was about to appear in the est in natural resources. Asheville newspaper. I had to fly back into “My wife talked to me and said, if you’re Raleigh that day and go straight to the manbeing offered an opportunity, why would you sion to have a meeting with Gov. Hunt. It was want to reject it?” he said. “I accepted. That not a pleasant meeting.” was the best decision I think I’ve ever made in Thankfully, said Lee, their friendship my life.” recovered, but Hunt made it clear that no state Later that year, Lee found himself at Lake money would be coming to fund Lee’s big Junaluska, speaking as part of the fourth idea. While Hunt later saw the value of the National Trails Symposium. There he proMST concept, recently telling Lee that launchposed a state trail stretching 450 miles from ing the trail is what he’s most proud of from the mountains to the coast, touching commutheir time in office together, that conversation nities and natural areas alike. As reported in a set the tone for a culture that continues to this contemporary article by Mountaineer writer day — throughout its history, the MST has Doug Clark, the trail would give visitors and been a shoestring operation fueled by volunresidents alike “a real feel for the sights, teers, donations and the goodwill of land mansounds and people of this state.” agement agencies and private landowners. Completing the trail would be a long-term “I made a speech. My heart was goal, Lee said, and it would take cooperation in it. I was committed to it, and in
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White dots mark the way from Clingmans Dome to Jockey’s Ridge on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Holly Kays photo
Thinking bigger After 45 years, MST vision keeps growing BY HOLLY KAYS OUTDOORS EDITOR utting off from the left side of a typically busy Blue Ridge Parkway pull-off overlooking Mills River, an unassuming dirt path dips into the woods and winds its way east, just out of view of the famed scenic drive. In a month or so, flowers and newly birthed leaves will splash color through the forest, and eager undergrowth will paint over the woodland floor, now plastered with dead brown leaves. Today, though, the trees are still bare, an assertive cold front staving off spring’s arrival. I’m wearing thermal leggings under my hiking pants, a knit hat and three layers on top. Snowflakes shaped like tiny snowballs drift through the air, melting in disappointment as they meet ground that’s just barely too warm to hold them. But despite the chill, portents of spring
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abound — for those willing to slow down enough to see them. Patches of showy white bloodroot flowers burst through thick layers of decay. Orange columns of bear corn rise alongside last year’s crumbling remains. Close to the ground, the pink-white blooms of trailing arbutus poke out between leathery, evergreen leaves. Observation, combined with imagination, make it possible to see what this place — one small link in the 1,175-mile Mountains-to-Sea Trail — will look like once the comforting nirvana of summer arrives.
THE VISION The MST itself is the result of that same kind of vision — the kind that sees beyond what is, to glimpse what could be. Stretching from Clingmans Dome on the Tennessee border to Jockey’s Ridge State Park in the Outer Banks, the long-distance trail exists because 45 years ago, one person had enough faith in the vision to name it publicly, and countless
