Jan Onan

November 2019

Jan Onan was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by Carolina Mountain Club (CMC) at the club’s membership dinner in October. Highlights of her impact with the club include leading the effort to create the Youth Partnership Challenge (YPC) to encourage children and their adults to discover the outdoor beauty of western North Carolina, as well as her current leadership role as the Councilor for Education and Outreach. In that role she has amplified the array of educational opportunities available to connect CMC to the local community.

In acknowledging her service, the club described Onan as bubbling with new ideas, and knowledge for how to make them work.

In 2008 Jan Onan attended ATC’s Trail To Every Classroom workshop. Coming out of that experience, Onan supported curriculum development centered around the A.T. in several different schools. She also serves as an interpreter for students from the school for the deaf during camping, hiking, and summit discussions. Continuously providing inclusive Trail experiences for all. Onan also uses her skills as a sign interpreter during programs such as the NextGen Forest Ambassadors, a youth summit where participants lend their voices in support of connecting other young individuals to the public lands that belong to all of us.Onan now co-leads ATC’s ATEACH (A.T. Education Advisory Committee), providing leadership to the committee, providing advice and support to the ATC’s education and youth engagement work.

ATC’s Director of Outreach and Education, Julie Judkins, explains that “[Onan] has a can-do attitude with everything she does, and is consistently looking for ways to help get youth outside and to be stewards.”