by Krista Cessna
A few years ago, John Stein discovered this well-deserving person who has an amazing network of contacts. John talked this person into being a trail maintainer for the Mid State Trail. Our Volunteer of the Year claims, “John was always looking for maintainers, or ‘schmucks,’ to help with the trail work. I guess that is how he found me—I schmuck long enough behind him and he figured out how to get me to take over for him!”
I first met this person in Tioga County, when she was the cook for a KTA summer Week Trail Crew. From Tuesday night through Sunday morning, she prepared meals at a campsite and set out the fixings for packed lunches.
In 2008, 2009, and 2012 in Bedford County, she bushwhacked through the blueberry and laurel brambles of the Martin Hill Wild Area of the Buchanan State Forest with Pete, her trusty dog Jake, the KTA Trail Crews, and me to relocate a section of the Mid State Trail as a memorial to my father.
This ever-smiling person is the current regional manager for the southern section of the longest footpath through Pennsylvania. She is experienced in winning over landowners to be a part of the Mid State Trail. She was often the second half of John Stein’s rule—visit with two people to landowner meetings. Plus she adds some advice of her own—take your dog along as an icebreaker. So when you ride on the Pennsylvania Turnpike between the Breezewood and Bedford exits and see the state police station in the shadow of Tussey Mountain, you will pass through her community and trail town of Everett.
For the past 6 years, she has planned and led Trail Crew work weeks. Listen to the astounding things that have happened in her region:
• When I stopped by on a Friday night this summer, she had a bluegrass band entertaining the crew!
• A northbound thru-hiker showed up in town saying the trail was too brushy and rocky. This regional manager put him to work with the Trail Crew for a couple of days before he got a ride to Woolrich
• Our speakers from the KTA Spring Meeting, Jo and Bart, appeared on the trail in Everett this summer. Jo had taken a bad fall. Our Volunteer of the Year found Jo some R&R while putting Bart on the Trail Crew for a day
• One Saturday, the Trail Crew dug sidehill in a messy, muddy road embankment. On Sunday, it somehow got “paved” with about half of a ton of stone. Who else could find stone on a Sunday in Bedford County?
• She arranged to have REI volunteers join her Trail Crews. Once, the crew worked with the CEO of REI, Sally Jewell, who later became the Interior Secretary of President Obama’s cabinet.
Her crowning achievement is the 2014 completion and national recognition for the 85-foot (26-meter) Yellow Creek Bridge Project in Loysburg. In June, our Volunteer of the Year and Ed Lawrence traveled to Washington, DC, to accept an award from the Coalition for Recreational Trails. This was a 10-year effort by the Mid State Trail Association with tremendous holdups along the way and over $30,000 of fundraising, but I love how one of her friends said, “I never doubted for a moment we would have a new bridge once I saw the fire in Deb’s eyes!”
Please join me in congratulating Debra Dunkle, the 2014 KTA Volunteer of the Year! Deb, you have definitely turned the tables on John Stein. Now he can be your SCHMUCK!