A sunny morning at the McLane Fire Department drew dozens of community members, elected officials, business leaders, and school children to honor former Washington Secretary of State, Ralph Munro on Wednesday, June 6, 2018, in renaming a trail in his name.
Munro established the McLane Forest Committee twenty-five years ago, and since that time, the group has worked tirelessly to design, construct, and maintain a trail located on the corner of Evergreen Parkway and Mud Bay Road, known as the McLane Trail.
One of the main focuses of this project was to include youth, specifically schoolchildren from nearby McLane Elementary School. Since the mid-1990s, over 6,000 kids have had an opportunity to learn about the environment and have planted thousands of trees and flower bulbs with the support and guidance of Munro and the McLane Forest Committee.
“This is all about the kids,” Munro says. “The goal was to get kids outdoors. We never dreamt it would turn into this but one thing led to another and here we are. Some of the trees we planted are 40 feet high now!”
Munro has consistently been an advocate for the expansion of the regional trail network. Munro continues his involvement with the Washington Department of Transportation, Thurston County, and with kids in hopes to expand the amount of accessible trail corridor for the public.
