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Ceremony celebrates success of Trail de Paris
By Krista Goerte
Published November 16, 2009
Beautiful weather greeted participants at the appreciation ceremony for the Trail de Paris on Saturday.
Activities for young and old alike took place all around the pavilion at Love Civic Center and on the Trail in addition to the ceremony.
Speakers at the event included Kenny Dority, Chamber of Commerce chairman, State Rep. Mark Homer, D-Paris, Jesse Freelen, Paris mayor, Andy Goldbloom with Texas Parks & Wildlife and Earl Erickson, one of the biggest forces behind the Trail’s success.
“The trail started as a Leadership Lamar County project,” Dority said. “That class took that project and had the idea from Earl Erickson and grew that project to what it is today; and we want to thank that Leadership Lamar County class for starting that out.”
Homer talked about the Trail’s benefit to Paris.
“This is our project,” Homer said. “This is something to make Paris and Lamar County, and, when Earl gets his way, Northeast Texas a better place.
“There are any number of grants that are applied for annually and all the wants and wishes of those grants are good causes, but I can’t think of one that better encompasses everything that we want for this community and that everyone wants,” Homer said. “Not only how it brings the health aspects — people getting out and walking and biking and getting out and doing some aerobics — the family and community aspects of it and the safety aspect in that it is a safe place where your children can go. I think of the tourism aspect of it and bringing new people through Paris... and the economic aspect of it as well. When you can bring all that together in one basket, you know these are dollars that are well spent and well served in our community.”
Freelen thanked two City of Paris employees who were instrumental in the trail effort: Bill Loranger, parks supervisor, and Shawn Napier, director of engineering, planning, and development.
“I love Paris, Texas, I love being a part of this, I love the people in our community and Earl Erickson is a big part of why our community is the way it is today,” Freelen said.
Goldbloom, who has been instrumental in helping the Friends of the Trail locate grant money, spoke about the project.
“Trails out of all the other facilities that we (TP&WD) fund can be used by more people,” Goldbloom said. “Anybody can use the trail. This trail you can see kids in strollers, you can see people in wheel chairs — it doesn’t matter how old you are, how rich, how poor you are, projects like this really help tie a community together.
“To capitalize on an abandoned railroad corridor, where essentially the land came free for this project — it was sitting for years, and it really took a champion, and I will jump on the Earl Erickson bandwagon here for a minute, to really champion a project like this.”
The real star of the celebration was Erickson, with every speaker mentioning the impact of his time and dedication.
“Is there enough that can be said for Earl Erickson?” Homer asked. “You just wish that every project had an Earl Erickson on the job, because let me tell you, he does not give up; he won’t give up. I know he’s going to see this thing to the end.”
“Earl has worked so hard, and this guy is unbelievable,” Freelen said. “Anything he sets his mind to, he’s going to do it, and it’s going to be the best it can possibly be.”
“Normally we’d give a plaque to someone, but Earl is probably a little past deserving a plaque, so we got something special,” he said.
Freelen gave Erickson a stuffed Energizer Bunny to show how much time and effort he has put into the Trail.
“On behalf of the Friends of the Trail steering committee, we all want to thank you for coming out and participating in the appreciation celebration and all the hundreds of donors that have made Trail de Paris a reality,” Erickson said.
“The bottom line of the mission of the Trail de Paris has been and will always be to improve the quality of life in our community,” he said.
He encouraged community individuals to “try out” the trail and encourage friends and family to do the same.
Erickson also extended an open invitation for those wanting to join the Friends of the Trail.
Activities at the event included wildflower seed planting with the Lamar County Master Gardeners, Trail tours with the Lamar County 4-H Range and Wildlife project with the Red River chapter of Master Naturalists, tree planting with Lamar County Community Supervision Department headed by Jimmy Don Nicholson, face painting courtesy of Lamar County Juvenile Probation, local snake identification with Jack Brown, Paris Junior College biology instructor, bounce houses thanks to Inflation Station and potato sack races thanks to the local Boy Scouts.
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