Trail Builder Kathy Connelly
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. Her mother grew up in Minneapolis and took full advantage of the city’s parks and lakes, then worked in Glacier National Park one summer as a teenager “and just absorbed the beauty of the West in her bones.”
“They shared that commitment to the outdoors with the seven of us,” says Connelly about herself and her siblings. Her first memory of becoming entranced with the outdoors was during a family trip to Yellowstone National Park, when she was about 7 years old: “I was standing in the water and it was perfectly clear. I could see my feet without any cloudiness in the water.”
Connelly brings her passion for the outdoors—and for sharing the experience with others—to the Parks & Trails Council board of directors, where she’s served on the Land Acquisition Committee and also been involved as a volunteer attorney on a number of land acquisition projects.
An attorney, with a law degree from Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon Connelly had hoped to do environmental law—and in her early years as a lawyer, environmental law was part of the mix. But her career took a turn and she became more involved with health care issues in her legal work. “It hit me that I don’t have to be paid to do environmental law; I could just do it as a volunteer,” she said. She looked at a number of environmental organizations that used volunteer attorneys as places to offer her skills, but approached Parks & Trails Council because she liked the way the organization works.
“It has a sustainable model,” she says. “I am most involved in acquisitions, which are funded by this great revolving fund until they can be permanently purchased by the city, township, county or the federal governments or, most often, by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. When you give a dollar to Parks & Trails Council, that dollar gets spent over and over for the organization’s mission.”
Connelly’s life reflects her commitment to the outdoors in almost every aspect. She lives in a building overlooking Wirth Park in Minneapolis and volunteers at the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden in the park. She’s also done hands-on invasive species removal, portage clearing, writing for environmental publications, a variety of citizen science projects and governance and advocacy projects for a variety of organizations.. She’s also on the board of the Minnesota Hobby Beekeepers Association (a story in itself; her hives are outside the city).
Her partner, Carolyn Sampson, is chair of the board for the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness. “I’m so proud of her work,” Connelly says. The two of them spend as much time as they can in the area around Ely, where Sampson has some family. In fact, Connelly says, she met Sampson outdoors—at a campsite in Wisconsin.
Asked to describe her perfect day, Connelly says: “I have a whole day to spend. I have packed a bag with field guides and binoculars and a meal. I’m with Carolyn and we just go and explore somewhere in the outdoors. It can be any weather: winter, summer, clear, raining, cold, hot. It has the possibility of an adventure—even if an adventure doesn’t happen, it’s a good day.”
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.