By John McFerrin

The July 13 meeting of the Board of West Virginia Highlands Conservancy was a momentous one. The meeting saw the end of one era and the beginning of what could be an exciting new direction for the organization.

The ending era was the resignation of Cindy Rank as chair of the Extractive Industries Committee. She has been the chair of that committee since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary (flowery way of saying as long as anyone can remember). Whatever the definition of “long enough” is, this is it. Her knowledge of the industries that committee deals with is encyclopedic. Her persistence in the face of frustrations, her knowledge, and her commitment have been inspirations to us all for decades. While she will continue to be an inspiration, that she no longer has the title of committee chair is momentous.

Stepping into Cindy’s enormous shoes is Andrew Young, the new chair of the Committee. Rick Webb, Cindy Rank and John McFerrin will continue as Committee members.

The second big decision at the Jully Board meeting was another step toward changing the nature of the organization. For most of our history, the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy was an almost entirely voluntary organization. Almost from the beginning we have paid small stipends to the editor of The Highlands Voice and a membership secretary to manage our membership list, send out renewal notices, etc. We moved toward having a professional staff with hiring a Director and expanding the duties of the membership secretary.

At the July meeting we took the next step. We adopted a plan to expand staff capacity.  The big idea is that there are opportunities for grants and opportunities to grow the organization and make the organization more effective that current staff doesn’t have time to pursue. To address this, we would hire a Communications Coordinator who would do much of the work of producing the Voice and managing the website. This would allow current Director and Communications Coordinator Olivia Miller to concentrate more on strategic and administrative activities, including fundraising.

The Membership and Operations Director, the position currently held by Crys Bauer, would change as well. She would still manage the membership and the store purchases. She would move more into helping with fundraising and organizational development.  

The staffing would also increase by the addition of an Americorps Volunteer to help with our projects. We do not yet have a person for this position, but the Board previously approved it and we will be advertising for someone.

With more staff comes a bigger budget. We have gotten a dedicated donation that would pay for the initial expenses of moving to a larger staff. We are assuming (and hoping) that having a larger staff will help the organization grow and that it will increase our capacity to get more grants. If our assumptions are correct, the larger organization could support a larger and more effective staff.

Had we had only these two developments, this would have been a significant Board meeting. We could have had lunch and gone home.  

Instead, we did the usual Board business. It was not as momentous as Cindy’s retirement or the staff expansion but significant, nonetheless.

Treasurer George Hack presented the report of the treasurer. He reported that our revenues from membership is largely flat. Our income is up because of the income from some grants.  

We are going to buy another batch of the I (heart) Mountains stickers. They are by far our most popular store item plus we have them wherever we set up a display table, so we always need more.

Luanne McGovern presented the report of the Grants Committee. This year, we have gotten three grants, including one to support the Mountain Odyssey outings program and one to support the Dolly Sods Stewards. We also have another grant that we have applied for. One of the grants that we got in 2023 was to produce a coloring book featuring highlands creatures. It is in process; Luanne had a sample page to give us an idea of what the final product will look like. Seeing that sample page was far and away the cuteness highlight of the meeting.

Planning for the Fall Review at Cacapon State Park on October 18-19 is coming right along. The speakers are largely confirmed with sessions on the state of the highlands, old growth forests, Corridor H, ecotourism, and more. To quote the great Briscoe Darling, “If you’ve got time to breathe, you’ve got time for music.” There will be music.

Membership is holding steady; Crys and Olivia have made a goal of 100 new members this year (that would be more new members than we have ever had in a single year) and we are not quite half way there. Revenue from memberships is holding steady.  

Olivia Miller presented her Program Director report. She continues to keep a running list of activities we have been involved with. It is now quite long and quite impressive. We have outings scheduled for this summer and fall with more to come. She has been doing tabling at events and has more tabling scheduled. She participated in a citizen inspection of a surface mine and is working on grant applications. All this and the Voice still comes out every month. Followers and Facebook and Instagram continue to increase.

Hugh Rogers reported on the work of the Highways Committee, entirely Corridor H. The Draft Revised Environmental Impact Statement is due out any time now and we will be commenting on that. The dynamic has changed in recent years with articulated concern spreading beyond just Corridor H Alternatives.

Susan Rosenblum reported on the work of the Rivers Committee. They are still training water testers of streams that would be affected by Corridor H construction. They need more testers. The need will become more acute if construction starts and it becomes advisable to do weekly testing.

Lame duck Cindy Rank reported on Extractive Industries. We are continuing to push the rock up the hill, with some litigation on enforcement of Federal Environmental Laws (Clean Water Act/EPA & Army Corps, SMRCA/OSM, Endangered Species Act, etc.)

Dave Johnston reported on the work of the Dolly Sods Stewards. The trailhead stewards resumed their work in May. They had their picnic in May as well as additional training. They also presented gifts of appreciation for the stewards who have logged the most hours. The Stewards have been able to provide data that the Forest Service will use in decision making. The Forest Service will probably be closing some camping areas which have sprung up in inappropriate places.

The Solitude Monitoring program continues. One of the values that a Wilderness such as Dolly Sods is supposed to provide is the opportunity for solitude. The Solitude Monitoring program is designed to find out how well Dolly Sods provides that value. To do this, they had hikers recording the number of encounters on selected trails on randomly selected dates in May and June. 

The crosscut sawyers and trail clearing team have done several projects. Because Dolly Sods is a designate Wilderness, power tools are not permitted. All the work is done using hand tools, including vintage crosscut saws.

The Backcountry Stewards program is getting started. In the past stewards only had contact with the public at the trailheads. The Backcountry Stewards expands upon this by having stewards roam about the backcountry, providing a similar service while also doing campsite inventory and occasionally doing campsite cleanup.

Rick Webb reported on the activities of the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance. It is continuing producing detailed and layered web maps of various projects of interest to the Highlands Conservancy. Each contains a wealth of information about the project it focuses upon. In addition to the detailed project maps, the Alliance has several of what it calls Snapshot Maps. These are less detailed than the project maps, but they still provide a lot of helpful information. Rick is resigning as the executive director of ABRA, to be replaced by Dan Shaffer.