2019 Class
 M. Jean Van Gilder Cashin was born and grew up in eastern Pennsylvania.  Jean worked at a non-profit organization in Frederick, Md created to assist people with developmental disabilities. Then, in 1972, Jean began a career with the Appalachian Trail Conference (now Conservancy) in Harpers Ferry, WV. During her 24 years as Information Specialist, she helped shape and personalize ATC's hiker services, earning a well-deserved Trail-wide reputation as the universal Trail "mom". Among her many contributions, Jean started the tradition of taking a photo of each A.T. hiker intending to complete the entire Trail who stopped in at the ATC headquarters.

Jean was also a founding member of the Appalachian Trail Long Distance Hikers Association (ALDHA). She was honored at the ALDHA Gathering in 2012.  After retirement, she continued to support the ATC in many capacities.  Jean passed away in 2013.
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Paul M. Fink was probably the single person most responsible for laying out the Appalachian Trail in the southern states.  He was a pioneer hiker, who did some of the very first hiking in the Tennessee-North Carolina border areas.  His seminal book Backpacking Was The Only Way described his hiking experiences in that area beginning in 1914. 

In 1922, only a year after Benton MacKaye’s famous article proposing an Appalachian Trail was written, Fink began corresponding with hiking leaders in New England about building the Trail.  When Myron Avery began planning the route of the AT in the south, Fink was the first person he contacted. 

​Fink guided Avery as they laid out the route of the trail.  Fink was also an early advocate for the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, through which the A.T travels along the Tennessee-North Carolina border.  He passed away in 1980.
The Appalachian Trail corridor is a narrow footpath.  But, the A.T. would not exist in the way we love it without its corridor, the land through with it passes.  One man has spent his entire career preserving the A.T.’s character amidst the threatening urbanization.

Donald T. King currently serves as the National Park Service chief realty officer for the National Land Resources Program Center in Martinsburg, WV.  His career with the NPS has spanned more than 40 years in a variety of capacities, but much of his career since 1979 has been devoted to supporting and then overseeing NPS land acquisition for the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. 

​Today his duties also include land acquisition support for the Pacific Crest NST, the Florida NST, the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation.  During his distinguished career, Don King has been involved, directly and indirectly, in the acquisition of lands and interests in lands along the A.T. in 11 states, affecting more than 2,500 parcels and 117,000 acres, and extending federal protection along 620 miles of the A.T., surely one of the most complex and successful park related land acquisition programs in the nation.  
Robert T. Proudman’s involvement in the A.T. dates back to his first year on Appalachian Mountain Club’s New Hampshire Trail Crew in 1965. He rose through the ranks becoming the first fulltime, club-wide Supervisor of Trails in 1972. Bob joined the National Park Service A.T. Park Office in 1979-80 after which he joined the staff of ATC in 1981.

Bob is author or co-author of ATC’s Appalachian Trail Design, Construction and Maintenance and AMC’s Trail Building and Maintenance, 1977 and ’88 editions. Bob also helped found ATC’s corridor monitoring program, trail crew programs, ridge runner and caretaker programs, as well as major government-funded procurement programs for removing structures and dams along the Trail.

​Known as “Bobe” to his friends, he worked nationally and internationally as a consultant, trail designer and recreational safety expert and has extensive outdoor experience as a mountaineer and adventurer.  After a 50-year career with trails, Bobe retired from ATC in 2015 and passed away in 2018. 
The 2019 Class was honored at the 9th Annual A.T. Hall of Fame Banquet, on May 4, 2019.  Below is a slide show of pictures from the Banquet.