Unsung Hero: Duane Ford

Unsung Hero:

Duane Ford

Duane Ford stands on the Cricket Frog Trail near its Elm Street crossing in downtown Covington. Ford chaired the nonprofit Newton Trails Inc. as it over-

saw major moves toward completion of the 15-mile pedestrian trail. Tom Spigolon | The News

Ford led all-volunteer organization in making major strides toward countywide trail system

By TOM SPIGOLON

tspigolon@covnews.com

Duane Ford wanted to stay active when he and his wife moved to Georgia after his career in higher education ended.

The former community college president has indeed stayed active — and even helped lead a trails organization to the cusp of making a connection that could benefit Newton County for years.

Ford serves as chairman of the the board of directors of the nonprofit Newton Trails Inc., a nonprofit that includes about 40 “pretty active” volunteers and 30 additional people who regularly participate on its numerous projects and activities, he said.

It is dedicated to building, maintaining and linking an extensive system of bicycle and pedestrian trails throughout the county -- with a major focus on completing a continuous 15-mile route for the Cricket Frog Trail from Covington to Mansfield.

The trail sits atop the bed of an abandoned railroad — a local version of similar “rails to trails” projects that have proven to be economic boons to communities in other parts of metro Atlanta in recent years.

In 2021, Ford led the nonprofit as its volunteers refurbished former railroad bridges, installed trailside benches and pet waste stations, saw local governments pave many miles of the trail, and began an ambitious fundraising campaign to renovate the final, and largest, bridge on the trail.

Ford noted Newton Trails has “a long history, a lot of stuff, over many, many years.”

“I can’t take a lot of credit,” he said. “I can say that I made some contributions.”

“There have been so many people that have been working on getting this to happen over decades,” Ford said. “I think it was headed in the right direction because of the work of so many people in the past and I just happened to become involved in Newton Trails at the right time.”

The nonprofit was first chartered in 1998 and its first project was a 4.7-mile soft surface trail at Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center near Mansfield.

It followed in the 2000s with the Eastside Trail linking Chimney Park and Eastside High School; the Ox-

ford Trail in the Oxford College area; and a loop trail along the Yellow River in Porterdale; before it tackled the Cricket Frog Trail in 2016.

That local focus on developing pedestrian trails indirectly led Ford and his Tennessee native wife, Sheri, to move to Covington after they decided to move South in 2016.

Ford spent much of his life before retirement gaining an expertise in agricultural science -- beginning with the real-world application of it on his family’s farm between Chicago and Peoria in northern Illinois.

He earned an undergraduate degree in agronomy from the University of Illinois, and master’s and doctorate degrees in Crop Production and Physiology from Iowa State University, before beginning a career in teaching and academic leadership in 1986 at Truman State University in Missouri.

He rose to become chairperson of the Department of Agriculture at Southeast Missouri State University; dean of the College of Business, Industry, Life Science and Agriculture at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville; and served as president of Southwest Wisconsin Technical College before retiring in 2015.

In Wisconsin, he served on the Platteville Water and Sewer Commission, Platteville Economic Development Advisory Committee, and Southwest Health Board of Directors and was actively involved with the Grant County Economic Development Corp. and Fennimore Industrial and Economic Development Committee.

Ford said he and Sheri also had been biking enthusiasts in Wisconsin where hundreds of miles of former railroads have been converted into trails.

“We were trail tourists. We would take a long weekend,” Ford said.

“When we were shopping for some place to move to, we must have looked at 15 different communities,” he said. “One of the criteria that we were looking for was some place that had some kind of opportunity for trails.”

Another factor in the move: they knew about the area because his wife’s son-in-law was already in Covington working as a set dresser for the production company filming “The Vampire Diaries.”

After moving to Newton County, Ford has served on the Main Street Covington board of advisors in addition to his leadership roles with Newton Trails.

Under Ford’s leadership, Newton Trails’ 2021 fundraising campaign exceeded its goal of $25,000.

The organization led efforts to refurbish and add new surfaces to bridges over West Bear Creek and East Bear Creek in east central Newton; and assisted the city of Covington in rebuilding the 247-foot wooden trestle bridge over Dried Indian Creek, including adding a 12foot concrete surface for pedestrian use.

Mansfield city government committed $50,000 to pave 0.8 miles of the trail within its city limits this year. The city of Covington also completed paving nearly a mile within its borders — meaning more than 12 miles of the 15-mile trail now have hard surfaces, Ford said.

Newton Trails received donations in 2021 for six trailside benches — two of which were installed in 2021 and the remaining benches on order, he said.

They also added new abutments at either end of the two Bear Creek bridges, and removed trees and brush along five miles of unpaved trail.

The vegetation removal work cleared the way for the county government to pave five miles of the trail from the Alcovy River to East Bear Creek in unincorporated Newton, Ford said. The county also installed user-activated crossing lights at Piper Road.

Donations also were made for eight pet waste stations in the Covington and Mansfield areas.

The nonprofit is in the midst of an effort to raise over $612,000 to complete the renovation of the nowclosed bridge over the Alcovy River bridge which is about twice as long as the Dried Indian Creek bridge.

Its completion will make the Cricket Frog an unbroken, 15-mile pedestrian path between Covington and Mansfield.

The organization is hoping grants and private donations will bring in enough money to complete the work within two years, Ford said.

He said he would like to see all major trails in Newton County connect in the future -- among them a Yellow River Trail that extends the current riverside loop; as well as the Dried Indian Creek trail under development by the city of Oxford; and a federally funded pedestrian trail planned by the Newton County government along Fairview Road in west Newton.

Newton Trails also is negotiating to extend its lease of the former Norfolk Southern/Central of Georgia railroad bed from Mansfield through Newborn to the Jasper County line, Ford said.

Newton Trails volunteers work to complete a wooden covering on a former railroad bridge over East

Bear Creek for its use as part of the Cricket Frog Trail in 2021. Special | Newton Trails