Trail Builders

Inheriting a love of the outdoors

By Linda Picone

There was no way Kathleen Connelly was not going to love the outdoors. Her father, who grew up in St. Paul, started going to the North Shore—“to one of those areas we’re now trying to preserve”—as a child, with a father who valued the outdoor experience.

Mr. Border Route Trail

Behind every successful park or trail effort you will find a Trail Builder, an individual that shepherded the dream into reality, giving time, money or both in pursuit of the goal. The following is a Question & Answer feature on one such Trail Builder - Ed Solstad.

Energy and determination

Behind every successful park or trail effort you will find a Trail Builder, an individual who shepherded that dream into reality, giving time, money or both. The following Question & Answer features one such Trail Builder – Peggy Lynch. Lynch is the executive director for the Friends of the Parks & Trails of St. Paul and Ramsey County. She has been instrumental in helping to create the Lilydale and Samuel H. Morgan trails and she helped lead a successful effort to protect Crosby Farm/ Hidden Falls Regional Park from a housing development in the early 1980s.

Visit every park

Behind every successful park or trail effort you will find a Trail Builder, an individual that shepherded the dream into reality, giving time, money or both in pursuit of the goal. The following is a Question & Answer feature with a dynamic pair of Trail Builders – Elaine Elnes and Charlie Silverson.