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In 2007 we celebrated our 10th anniversary. 

The roots of Chief Noonday Chapter go back to 1992 when Pat Allen, the second Executive Director of NCTA, set up a meeting in Hope Township in an effort to attract potential members for a new chapter.  She drew on membership lists which included supporters of the Appalachian Trail and the Sierra Club.  At that time the only chapters in Michigan were West Michigan (NCTA's first chapter nationally) and Marquette.  Pat recruited newly-retired attorney Dave Cornell, who had hiked the Appalachian Trail and with his wife Jan had developed an interest in volunteer work with the National Park Service.

Some early figures in Chief Noonday's history included (from left) Bob Benham, Lynn Waldron, Dr. John Sackett, Dave Cornell, and Jim McMellon, pictured in the summer of 1997 on the occasion of the completion of the Trail through the Sacketts' land.  (Photo provided by Dave Cornell)

Under Dave's leadership, what was to become the Chief Noonday Chapter began meeting in 1996 and held its official organizational meeting on May 21, 1997.  Eight or so people met in a small conference room at the Augusta Library to form the new chapter and choose a name.  They elected Dave Cornell as President, Bob Benham  as Vice President and Treasurer, Jim Mackey as Secretary, and Lynn Waldron as Chapter Delegate to the N.C.T.A. national conference.   They selected the name Chief Noonday Chapter over Twin Valleys Chapter, Tri-County Chapter, and Thornapple Chapter.

The first Board of Directors consisted of Dave Cornell, Pat Allen, Bob Benham, Jim Mackey, Doug Schneider, and Amy South.  Members of the Chapter from its earliest days also included Bill Fales, Tom Garnett, Richard Grau, Ron Hutchinson, Rick King, William Kirks, Randy Loga, Jeffery Lutz, Phil Malpass, James McMellen, Dale Ossenheimer, Richard Seabold, Don Ulsh, and Charles Krammin.

Four days later the official Chief Noonday Chapter Charter from the North Country Trail Association was signed by NCTA president Derek Blount on May 25, 1997.

In the early years after the Chapter was founded, membership quickly grew.  The chapter worked with land managers, such as the Department of Natural Resources, Michigan State University and the Calhoun County Road Commission, to obtain permissions to route the Trail through publicly-owned parks and lands.  Organizations like Trout Unlimited lent a hand with projects like installing a restored covered bridge at Kellogg Forest.  A number of private landowners were enlisted to grant access to the Trail across their lands.  And the members busied themselves with blazing and constructing miles upon miles of new trail.  Lynn Waldron, an engineer, played a major role as VP for Trails and contributed significantly to the Chapter's great strides in trail construction.  Another Appalachian Trail hiker, Charles Krammin, worked with Lynn in the early mapping and development of the Trail routes as well as their construction and eventually took over from Lynn as VP for Trails.

Current Chapter President Larry Hawkins (center) confers with treasurer Ron Sootsman (left) and VP for Administration Larry Pio over the map of the Trail.

The first part of the Yankee Springs section and the Battle Creek Linear Pathway had already been certified (1/18/1995 and 7/26/1995 respectively) when the Chapter was founded, but other sections were added to the NCNST in roughly the following order:
•  Yankee Springs (second part certified 9/19/2001),
•  the Ron Hutchinson Property,
•  the Dr. John Sacketts property,
•  Kellogg Experimental Forest,
•  Kellogg Biological Station,
•  Cheff Center,
•  the Barry State Game Area (certified 9/19/2001)
•  the Paul Henry Trail at Middleville,
•  Battle Creek's Ott Preserve, Kimball Pines, and Historic Bridge Park,
•  the Ft. Custer National Cemetery (certified 7/6/2004), and
•  the Middleville State Game Area.

Nowadays our focus has shifted to providing the best maintenance possible to the existing trail while pursuing projects we have in the works to move more of our connector trail sections off-road through private or publicly-owned properties.  A major tool for maintaining our off-road trail sections is a program developed and still supervised by Dave Cornell -- our Trail Adopters -- twenty-two individuals who each take responsibility for regularly assessing and caring for their own sections of the Trail.

Since our founding we've had three Chapter Presidents:  Dave Cornell (1997-2002), Tom Garnett (2002-2005), and Larry Hawkins (2005-present). 

In addition, we have had Chapter members involved at the national level, including

• Dave Cornell, founding member of our chapter, who is currently serving as President of the Board of Directors for the North Country Trail Association.
• Martha Jones of Royal Oak who is a Past President of NCTA (1990-1992).
• Jim Baldwin, member at-large of the NCTA Board of Directors, who for a time worked in the national office at Lowell to reorganize its business operations.
• Larry Hawkins, current chapter president, who now serves as member-at-large on the Board of Directors of the NCTA.  Larry served on the Search Committee of the NCTA Board of Directors for a new Executive Director, which resulted in the hiring of Bruce Matthews as the new Executive Director of the Association. 
• Mick Hawkins, who has been tapped to work on a trailwide project to compile a hiker's data book which will provide landmarks and resources which hikers can use to plan long distance hikes on the North Country National Scenic Trail.

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