Remembering Joan Thomas

December 2, 2011
Joan Thomas 1931-2011 Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust Board Member Joan Thomas passed away on November 28, 2011. Thomas was a steadfast and hard-working champion of the environment, and she will be sorely missed. In addition to her work with the Greenway Trust, Thomas was a former State Parks Commissioner, a founding member of...

November 21, 2011
On November 3rd, my husband Mark and I traveled to Atlanta to accept the 2011 Cornelius Pugsley Award for my Dad and Greenway Founding President, Jim Ellis. The Pugsley award is a national award given to three people each year by The National Park Foundation and The American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration. What an inspirational...

November 16, 2011
Greenway Trust Priority Area:
I was in Ellensburg this past week for the Greenway Trust’s first foray into planting projects at Reecer Creek, a tributary of the Yakima River. Until October of 2010, nearly 4,000 feet of the stream’s lowest reach was confined by a levee. The Reecer Creek Floodplain Restoration project set back the levee, opened up 58...

October 31, 2011
It was the perfect fall day to celebrate. Sunny, crisp, and cool, several dozen citizens, many with dogs or bicycles arrived to join the Seattle Mayor’s office, Seattle Department of Transportation, Washington State Department of Transportation, Puget Sound Regional Council, Seattle Parks and Recreation, Green Seattle Partnership, the Seattle Police Department and the Mountains...

October 25, 2011
Greenway Trust Priority Area:
I can’t believe I get paid to do this. That’s all I could think of as I hauled flipcharts and boxes of markers into our meeting space in Roslyn, a historic coal mining town on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains scented with ponderosa pine from the forested ridge above. I’m lucky to...

October 17, 2011
Greenway Trust Priority Area:
‘Tis the season as they say but in the Greenway’s case, ‘tis the season to plant trees! And plant trees we did at our annual Tree Planting Kick-Off Event this past weekend. Sponsored in part by Carter Subaru, KMTT- 103.7 The Mountain and REI, it was a spectacular celebration. Ok, ok, we acknowledge the weather was not so...

October 10, 2011
Greenway Trust Priority Area:
Perfection is a difficult thing to achieve. I usually only see it while watching Olympic performances or admiring a flower.  But this past week, Clark Elementary students from Issaquah opened the door a little wider for me when we were on a field study trip to Cybil Madeline Park. Teacher Tracey Guillen’s 4thgrade class...

September 19, 2011
The morning started off slow. I was still very sleepy after my second (yes second) cup of coffee. I figured I had a hard day of work ahead of me so I knew the extra coffee would help me haul my tools up the steep parts of the Little Si trail (something I wasn’t...

September 15, 2011
Greenway Trust Priority Area:
Every fall the spring Chinook salmon return to the Cle Elum River. And every fall the Yakima Basin Environmental Education Program (YBEEP) brings students to see, touch and study the fish. For 20 years, YBEEP has brought K-12 students from Central Washington schools out for field trips to learn about salmon, wildlife habitat and...

August 16, 2011
In July, I had the good fortune to travel to the Russian Far East with Tony Allison, Greenway Environmental Educator and Patrick Mulligan, University of Washington Arboretum Education Manger.  We started our ten day trip in Vladivostok which is located north of Korea.  Tony received a grant from the Walter Pereyra Foundation which sponsored...