Trail Builder Jim Massee
Celebrating success for a segment on the Minnesota River Trail
By Linda Picone
Jim Massee is an upbeat kind of guy, but even he was surprised at what the Minnesota Legislature did for the Minnesota River State Trail this year: "It's just crazy; we were blown away," he says. "When they were trying to whittle things down, we were at $690,000 and we thought, ‘OK, that's good, but it's not really going to do what we need.' When we got $1.5 million, we thought, ‘Now we've really got to start working.'"
The key to making it all come together this year was giving legislators a peek at what the trail could be. "It seemed like the thing that put it over the top was when House members came out and did a road show to look at it," he says. "It was in the fall and it was a beautiful day and we took them for a trip on the trail we hoped to get funded. They just loved it."
Massee, a banker in Appleton, MN, has been one of the "committee of three" that has been trying for years to put together the section of the trail from Appleton to Milan, roughly 11 to 12 miles. Massee; Dawn Heglund, who works for the regional development commission; and Gary Hendrickx, a Swift County commissioner, "just kind of meet when we need to," Masse says. "Whoever could talk to the Legislature, went down there. We had some community kind of meetings where we had 20 to 25 people show up who were interested."
The group started working on the trail in 2000, hoping to connect it from Appleton to Milan Beach, a resort area on Lac Qui Parle. The first phase, which was finished about four years ago, was an in-town loop. The second and third stages were to connect the trail to other segments. "We've spent the last five years trying to position ourselves to get the funding," says Massee. "We'd pretty much tapped out the local funding that was available, plus we didn't want the responsibility for maintaining the trail."
Massee is looking forward to meeting with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to figure out what happens next for the trail, "then we'll start working with landowners and probably start to build it next year."
Massee's work on the Minnesota Valley Trail segment is not surprising, given his commitment both to his community and to the outdoors. Although he didn't grow up in an outdoorsy family - he credits his childhood outdoor experiences to the Boy Scouts - he has taken his own three children outdoors pretty much everywhere. "We got them to all 50 states, mostly camping," he says. "Summer vacations, we'd do the national park thing. We also camped in quite a few of the provinces."
He said he and his wife and children were "consummate state parkers"; the whole family has been to all but two of the state's parks. "We did the hiking and got the kids all the patches; it defined our summers."
Now that the kids are grown - they're 18, 20 and 21 - Massee and his wife use the parks in a different way: "We basically parked and went golfing."
Massee has been a member of the Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota for many years and was a board member for a while. He's a member of the Magney Circle, making an annual contribution of $500 or more for ongoing operations of the Parks & Trails Council.
The land acquisition Parks & Trails does is what convinced Massee to become involved. "I initially got excited about the Parks & Trails Council when they were trying to buy Gold Rock Point on the North Shore," he says. "I knew it had to be part of the state park, no choice."
The North Shore still draws Massee, but he thinks the trail through his own hometown eventually can be a draw of its own. "The prairie is a little different. Any chance I get, I go up north, so I understand the love of the pine trees. But the prairie in its starkness has a lot of beauty."
About the Trail Builder feature: 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.
