Dick Barrick and Dick Redfield

2006 Volunteer of the Year

The 2006 Volunteer of the Year for the Mid-Atlantic region is Dick Barrick of the Cumberland Valley Appalachian Trail Club. Dick joined the organization in 1991 and was assigned a section of the A.T. to maintain. In addition to his maintenance and monitoring work on the A.T., he also worked on the Darlington and Tuscarora trails. Barrick chaired the Maintainers Committee from its inception in 1996—walking the club’s 17-plus mile A.T. section several times a year and noting problems for future work parties (most of which he participated in) and replacing maintainers as needed. A three-time certified sawyer, he took care of blowdowns throughout the valley. Barrick stepped down from his club positions in 2006 for health reasons, but recently reported that he has regained some strength and has been out walking on the trails.

Also in 2006, Volunteer of the Year recognition was made posthumously to long-time New York-New Jersey Trail Conference (NY-NJ TC) member Dick Redfield, an avid hiker and hard-working contributor to the hiking community. In addition to maintaining trails, Redfield spent countless hours volunteering at the Conferenceís office. He was part of the trail crew that developed sections of the A.T. in Dutchess and Putnam counties and, until his death in August, 2006 after a seven-year battle with leukemia, was a corridor monitor on the Graymoor section of the Trail.