American Trails' 20th National Trails Awards Program honors people and programs at the 20th American Trails National Symposium. The awards celebration was held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Nov. 16, 2010.
See the previous Award
Winners from 2008 - 2006 - 2004 - 2002, and 2000.
This award is given to an organization or individual that has demonstrated significant and sustained efforts to provide positive public exposure and education in the field of trail use, planning, design, or implementation.
Bob Fulcher

Bob Fulcher entertains college student volunteers with banjo
playing and music heritage (Photo: Cumberland Trail Conference)
For more than 10 years now, people from all over the world can tune in each Sunday night, at 8:30 PM Eastern Time, to listen to The Cumberland Trail -- a half-hour radio program hosted by Bob Fulcher, Park Manager of the Cumberland Trail State Park (a Millennium Legacy Trail), featuring the musicians who live within shouting distance of our trail. His aim is to represent the grassroots music of the 11 county corridor of the Cumberland Trail as realistically and fully as he can. The Cumberland Trail offers the rarest recordings from our region, often never-before issued or broadcast. Low fidelity. Exquisite. A few rough edges for traction. Electrifying, raw, brilliant performances for those who like the way music really sounds. The Cumberland Trail is the only state or national park in America using weekly musical documentaries to present and preserve its heritage.
The Cumberland Trail features a lot of custom-pressed LP album cuts -- vinyl that never made it to the stores, was never sold by mail order houses, and can't be located on the internet. They play custom 45s and cassettes -- the kind that sold only a few hundred copies, or not even that many. They feature home recordings made by families and "field recordings" made by professional folklorists -- 78's, reel to reel recordings, and home cassettes -- that only exist as a single copies, music that was recorded in the living rooms, basements, and front porches everywhere in our region.
Festival and concert recording make it on their show, too, from events in the Cumberland Mountains that bring out the best local music, like the Mountain Opry in Signal Mountain, the Rocky Fork Jamboree in Morgan County, or the Mountaineer Folk Festival at Fall Creek Falls State Park. And, they play the great music from the full-time professional musicians who were born and raised along the Cumberland Trail or live there now, folks like fiddling Curly Fox, Charlie Collins, Don and Earl, and the Isaacs, and the commercial 78s, 45s, 33s, cassettes, and cds that have been produced of our semi-professional bands and players.
The host of the program is Bob Fulcher, Park Manager of the Cumberland Trail State Park. He has worked as a park naturalist and ranger for over 25 years, a great portion of that time in Cumberlands. Since 1976, he has recorded and presented musicians from the Cumberland Mountains for the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Tennessee State Library and Archives, Tennessee Arts Commission, the Tennessee Bureau of State Parks, the National Folk Festival, and for County Records, the Tennessee Folklore Society label, and several other small labels.
The Cumberland Trail radio program has served as an invaluable tool to keep the regional community up to date on volunteer work projects, as work continues on the Cumberland Trail State Park. For great and rare old-time, bluegrass, gospel, rockabilly, balladry, vintage country, western swing, blues, folk, and more, from the backyard of the Cumberland Trail, from 1926 to 2010 and something, tune in The Cumberland Trail every Sunday night.
TO TUNE IN: Go to www.WDVX.com to find the live webcast. (You may have to download the suggested software to access the program).
American
Trails, P.O. Box 491797, Redding,
CA 96049-1797 (530)
547-2060
Fax: (530)
547-2035 Symposium@americantrails.org www.AmericanTrails.org
More about trails in the Chattanooga area:
Art
along the Tennessee Riverpark Greenway
Tennessee
Riverpark and Chattanooga Greenways
Plan
Chattanooga
Greenways center on the Tennessee
River
SORBA
Rallies to Make Chattanooga a Trails
City
Region replete with outdoor businesses
Chattanooga,
A City Worth Watching
Chattanooga Green Citizen Access
Destination of the Week: Chattanooga
Information from the 2008 Symposium in Little Rock, AR:
2008 Programs:
Schedule
General sessions
Keynote speakers
Featured workshops
Mobile workshops
Mini-workshops
Concurrent sessions
More things to do
2008 Sponsors and Exhibitors:
Sponsors
Exhibit Hall
Be
a sponsor
Sponsorship
levels
2008 Awards and volunteers:
National Awards
Be
a volunteer
Volunteer
signup
Planning
team
How to attend:
Registration
Hotels
Travel
Logistics + contacts
Past
and future of the National Trails Symposium:
Quad
Cities 2006
Austin
2004
Chattanooga
2010
Arizona
2013
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