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MARIE RIDDER A Worthy Winner of Community Service Award
MARIE RIDDER A Worthy Winner of Community Service Award
By Robert Banner
It seems only fitting that 99-year old Marie Ridder be the first recipient of the Orlean Community Trail System (OCTS) Community Service Award.
After all, Bob Lee, former head of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, believes she was the first landowner in Virginia to put her property near Hume in the nascent conservation easement program many years ago.
Ridder begged to differ, with a smile.
“One of the first,” she said. “But if Bob says so, OK.”
It’s been more than 20 years since Donn Smith and Jay Speer formed the OCTS from their picturesque back yard. The mission was to introduce landowners and land lovers unifying their like-minded desire to preserve and protect the area’s natural beauty.
By using the landowner’s permission to hike and trail ride on their property, the land lovers would find the inspiration to link arms, protecting the private land as a community. With data centers requiring Dominion power lines to crisscross our precious view sheds, the threat is real.
The OCTS sphere of influence is relatively small. Simply draw a circle around Orlean (south of Marshall) with a 10-mile radius. That includes Hume, Big Cobbler Mountain and gets close to Flint Hill. Its beauty is remarkable. History abounds. To leave the asphalt and go deeply in the pastures and woods is a benediction.
“We intended just a few trails,” Smith said. “We hosted popular social events like the Snipe Hunt, Barn Dance, and Tramp Roast Bonfire to recruit supporters and make introductions.”
The group organizes numerous trail rides, hikes, social events, roadside trash pickups, and a subset called the Chainsaw Posse (led by Jack Bowden) that cuts up fallen trees and delivers the logs to homes that only heat with wood.
More than 1,300 followers rally around OCTS on Facebook. And the award honoring Marie Ridder is meant to recognize leaders who have given selflessly. Ridder, who will turn 100 in January, surely fits that bill, and she remains sharp as a tack with a list of accomplishments as long as your arm.
Early on she saw the wisdom of preserving the land, and protected her 300 Hume acres forever. Throngs would follow, blanketing the Northern Virginia region with conservation easements.
Ridder also was able to help protect the 1,200 acres known as Texas Farm that was being threatened by developers. With the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), she teamed with Hope Porter, Eve Fout, Charlie Whitehouse, and Maggie Bryant and “we all worked together.”
Ridder is a former vice chair of the PEC and is still on their board. She’s a former trustee of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, having served on their executive committee, a former chair of the Virginia State Parks Commission, a former vice chair of the Virginia Landmarks Commission (serving three governors), and a former director on the Trust for Public Land.
She also was an editor for Conde Nast publications serving Vogue, Glamour and Mademoiselle. OCTS thinks the easement on her 300-acre property near Hume was her best work, which is hard to argue.
