Today is Earth Day, and that’s what this story featuring comments from Brent Bailey is about.
Well, that, and how opportunities can determine your path — just like that.
It might also be about unique dual majors in college, and how the intellectual hiking that ensues in our undergraduate years can end up having purpose as well, if we’re lucky.
Nearly 30 years ago, Bailey and a group of kindred spirits were lucky they were on the receiving end of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s generosity.
That was when the Morgantown woman gifted 84 acres of land in the Smithtown Road area to a fledgling group which included Bailey and his buddies mentioned above.
They called themselves the West Virginia Land Trust, and their purpose was just that. Their aim was to protect and preserve such sacred real estate in places where valleys and meadows, more often than not, were gouged out — to extract the coal and natural gas underneath the surface.
“Elizabeth’s gift is what established the land trust,” said Bailey, a founding member and executive director of the organization.
That early opportunity morphed into a Mother Nature portfolio. In years since, the trust has acquired other lands across the region and state — nearly 20,000 acres in all.
Which means every day is Earth Day for them.
The trust is also participating in the week-later “Touch the Earth Festival” April 30 at Marilla Park. A host of other like-minded organizations will be there also for the event that runs from 1-4 p.m.
Guided tours of trails and Marilla’s mini-wetland are on the bill, along with a tree-planting party and other activities with the health of the planet in mind.
Also, trees along the trail route will have signage with information about their ecological and financial benefit, particularly as they take root to help ease the adverse effects of climate change.
Visit https://www.wvlandtrust.org/ and click on the “Activities” link for complete details.
The trust, its executive director, is helping foster West Virginia’s outdoor economy.
And when the pandemic shut everything down indoors for three years, all those wide-open spaces started looking even better to people fatigued by being shut inside.
“We opened up a new network of trails right before March 2020,” Bailey said. “We’re a small organization, but we punch above our weight.”
Meanwhile, his undergraduate years at Kalamazoo College is Michigan were weighty and fun at the same time. He majored in French and biology.
“I couldn’t decide,” he said, chuckling. Then, he found himself on an environmental project in French-speaking West Africa.
“It all worked out,” he said.
TWEET @DominionPostWV
