Blue Ridge Photo courtesy of Rick Short Conservancy Saving The Places You Love 2013 ELK KNOB STATE PARK Photo by Laura Yaeger Executive Director’s Message . 2 JOin US TOday at BRC! OUR MISSION You can support our efforts by joining Working with willing landowners and local BRC Member Spotlight . 3 or renewing online, or by returning communities to permanently protect land Land Protection Projects . 4-5 the enclosed envelope with your and water resources with agricultural, Welcome New Trustee . 6 membership or contribution . ecological, cultural, recreational and AmeriCorps Member . 6 scenic value in northwest North Carolina . 2013 BRC Hike Schedule . 7 BRC In The Community . 8-11 Blue Ridge 2012 Events . .12-13 Conservancy LTA Accrediation . .14 Saving The Places You Love BRC Financial Summary . .14 Thank You M-Prints . 14 Looking Toward The Future . .15 If, after reading our newsletter, you pass it along to a friend, you have doubled Sponsor Thank You . 15 its impact without any additional cost to you or Blue Ridge Conservancy! 2013 Events . .16 Thanks for your help spreading the good word! BOARD OF From the Executive Director TRUSTEES E d Shuford BRC Accredited! President Virginia Tate Looking back over the last year two words come to mind Vice-President regarding BRC – achievement and results. Undoubtedly, our most John Turner significant achievement was earning accreditation from the Land Secretary Trust Alliance Accreditation Commission. Being an accredited Gary Clawson Treasurer land trust brings the recognition that BRC is professionally Photo courtesy of Katie Langley Photography Bob Cherry serving clients and generally operating at a high level using Member At-Large standards and practices set by the Commission. BRC actually Ann Baker began the accreditation process three years ago but because of our merger (the union of High Country Millie Barbee Conservancy and Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust) the Commission asked that the process be delayed Sonny Church until BRC had an established history as a new organization. We are one of a few land trusts nationally Kelly Coffey that has successfully merged and achieved accreditation. John Cooper F rom a results perspective, BRC finished the year with a solid land protection and Robert Dixon stewardship record. In 2012 we protected 470 acres bringing our total acreage protected to almost Susan Hambright 17,000. BRC staff also visited our existing 169 protected properties to ensure that the conservation Allen Moseley values of these lands remain undisturbed. Of the new protected acres, 408 were in two tracts on Fred Pfohl Pond Mountain. With the addition of these new properties, BRC has now protected over 2,400 acres Traci Royster on Pond Mountain opening up new access and hiking opportunities. If you have not visited Pond Michael Salzano Mountain or would like to return, please consider joining us on our annual hike on August 17th. In this edition of our newsletter you will read about the many exciting activities that BRC Chuck Smith provided for our members and friends in 2012. During the year, we led seven hikes to a variety of StAFF beautiful places in our seven-county territory including Pond Mountain, Elk Knob State Park, Bear Walter Clark Paw State Natural Area, Bullhead Mountain, and Beech Creek Bog. The annual Stick Boy Mayview Executive Director Madness Run was our most successful ever with over 320 participants. And the Forever Protected Eric Hiegl exhibit featuring artist Gayle Lowry drew large crowds to Appalachian State University’s Turchin Director of Land Protection Center for the Visual Arts to learn about the connection between art, landscape and land protection. and Stewardship But we won’t rest on our laurels. BRC will continue to direct our land protection efforts to Rob McCorkindale Director of Development key focus areas like Valle Crucis, Pond Mountain, Elk Knob, Stone Mountain, the Blue Ridge Parkway and Communications and farmland protection. Also, starting this year, we hope to help lead a new push to establish a Maria Whaley greenway connecting Blowing Rock and Boone along Middle Fork New River. BRC and the Middle Director of Operations and Administration Fork Greenway Association began this effort nine years ago by accepting the first land donation for the Katie Trozzo eventual construction of the greenway. AmeriCorps Land A nd finally, we hope to get you, our members and friends, out to enjoy the beautiful lands Protection Associate that BRC has protected. We will again be hosting hikes and some exciting events. Hope to see you there! Blue Ridge Conservancy P.O. Box 568 It’s all about achievement and results! 166 Furman Road, Suite C Boone, NC 28607 Warmest regards, 828-264-2511 www.blueridgeconservancy.org 2 www.blueridgeconservancy.org A Tribute in Memory of Mazie Jones Levenson (1914-2013) I met Mazie over three years ago when she phoned the office to introduce herself as a steadfast supporter of Blue Dear Mr. Clark, Ridge Conservancy. Little did I know that over the next few I am writing to express years Mazie would become a personal friend, a mentor and my appreciation for the one of BRC’s biggest cheerleaders. work of the Blue Ridge Although Mazie’s life journey took her away from western Conservancy. North Carolina, she always carried with her a deep love for As a native North the mountains and mountain people. Mazie filled her many Carolinian and a woman years with intellectual pursuits, public service and civic who was born in Boone, responsibility. She gathered a tremendous amount of wisdom Watauga County, I Photo courtesy of Mazie Jones Levenson along the way and was determined to share that wisdom spent much of my life in ways that made a difference in people’s lives. When I in the mountains. Now remember Mazie two lines from Max Ehrmann’s 1927 prose when I visit my home community, I see many changes in poem Desiderata come to mind – “Take kindly the council of the landscape. Howard’s Knob has fewer trees because years …” and “Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. houses are there, meadows are filled with apartments, and Keep interested in your own career, however humble, it is a roads split up the forests. These changes mean we are losing real possession in the changing fortunes of time.” As a mentor the scenic views and the ecological lands that sustain our and friend, Mazie provided wise council and her enthusiasm beautiful mountain plants. for BRC’s work continues to inspire us to protect the beautiful These changes were disturbing to mountain people who mountains of northwest North Carolina. love the land and want the beautiful areas to remain in their With Mazie’s passing the world lost a star but was so natural habitat. One solution was to form an organization enriched by her wonderful life. to protect important scenic lands. Lands began to be donated from farmers, businesses, Walter organizations, and citizens. Decisions were made to purchase lands in several counties – Watauga, Wilkes, Ashe, P.S. A year after her first phone call to Blue Ridge Alleghany, Avery, Mitchell, and Yancey. These are North Conservancy, I received the following letter … Carolina’s high mountain counties with great natural beauty. Blue Ridge Conservancy works hard to locate and preserve these scenic and ecological lands and it deserves our full support. This is the people’s way to protect our heritage. Mazie Jones Levenson 2/21/11 Photo by Rob McCorkindale Mazie Jones Levenson, a Boone native, was born in 1914 in the historical Jones House Community and Cultural Center. Her parents, Dr. John Walter Jones and Mattie Blackburn Jones, raised her in the famous home for two decades. After graduating from Appalachian Teachers College, now Appalachian State University, Mazie left the Jones House, the only place she had ever lived, to begin teaching. Mazie inherited the house after her mother’s passing in the late 1970s and sold it to the Town of Boone in the early 1980s. It now houses the Mazie Jones Gallery and the Upstairs Gallery One and Two. The house provides weekly outdoor concerts from June through September. www.blueridgeconservancy.org 3 Land Protection & Stewardship Highlights | 2012 Pond Mountain (408 acres) In 2012, Blue Ridge Conservancy continued its commitment to protect lands for public use in northwest North Carolina. BRC’s efforts have resulted in the creation of state natural areas including Beech Creek Bog, Bear Paw, and Bullhead Mountain. We continue to help Elk Knob State Park expand its borders and in 2012 we added 400 acres, in two separate transactions, to the 2,000-acre State Game Land Photo by Eric Hiegl preserve on Pond Mountain in Ashe County. will donate the property to the State for inclusion in the Pond Mountain Game Land. In the future, the NC Wildlife Resources Commission hopes to create public access point at this location. The second acquisition... Braun - Ashe County (281 acres) BRC began discussions with the Braun family in the mid- Photo by BRC Staff 1990s about permanently protecting their property near The first acquisition... Pond Mountain. In 2009, as the discussions became more Truth Temple, Ashe County (127 acres) serious, BRC submitted a grant application to the NC Clean Early last fall, BRC learned of a property to be auctioned in Water Management Trust Fund to purchase 281 acres. BRC Ashe County near the Pond Mountain Game Land. The received this grant as well as funding from the Walmart property also adjoined another property, the Braun tract, Corporation’s Acres for America program and Fred and which BRC had worked toward purchasing for several years. Alice Stanback. Using these funds, BRC purchased the By purchasing both tracts, BRC could expand the Pond property in December 2012.