Friday, June 29, 2007
By Larry Walsh, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Eight Homewood elementary school students are participating in the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s first “youth scholarship program,” an adventure that enabled them to join the Greenway Sojourn bicycle ride as it pedaled into Pennsylvania yesterday.

The students are taking part in the last three days of the eight-day 335-mile trip that began Saturday in Washington, D.C., and concludes tomorrow afternoon at Station Square. They began yesterday morning by riding the Western Maryland Railway Train from Cumberland to Frostburg where they got on the Great Allegheny Passage for a 15-mile ride to Meyersdale in southern Somerset County.

Devon Brown, Ronald Coker, Jamie Foltz, Malaysia Henderson, Allison McAfee, Whitney Owens, Tamond Russell and John Spell are all 11 years old and attend the Helen S. Faison Arts Academy in Homewood.

The ride took them over the Mason-Dixon Line, through the 3,300-foot-long Big Savage Tunnel; across the Eastern Continental Divide near Deal in southern Somerset County, the highest point on the passage; over the Keystone Viaduct and to the restored Western Maryland Railway station in Meyersdale.

They were accompanied by vice principal Anthony Pipkin and mentors Brian Funk, Holly Hudson, Marylou White and Bruce and Shelia Woods. The mentors are members of the Major Taylor Cycling Club, an African-American organization. The club is associated with the Center for Minority Health at the University of Pittsburgh.

Kelli McElhinny of Skutski & Oltmanns, a spokeswoman for the group, said the students have been training for the ride for the past month. She said some of the training included a stationary bike Pipkin put up in his office for them.

Their new mountain bikes and cycling gear, which they will be allowed to keep, were provided by the conservancy through a $4,500 Heinz Endowments grant secured in partnership with the Center for Minority Health.

Dr. Stephen Thomas, director of the center, said the soon-to-be-completed section of the passage from McKeesport to Pittsburgh will bring the trail closer to neighborhoods where African-Americans, Hispanics and other urban adults and young people reside.

“Now is the time to embrace diversity and get the word out” about the trail, said Thomas, a member of the conservancy’s board of directors.

He said Mario Browne, the center’s project director, assisted with planning and the selection of the Faison school to participate. The Jewish Healthcare Foundation also provided funding.

The REI store in the SouthSide Works supplied camping equipment and waived the rental fee. The store invited the students and all the participants to ride tomorrow through a “Welcome Arch” it made from old bike wheel rims.

The students and their mentors camped Wednesday night in Cumberland, Md., where they attended the “Golden Spoke” ceremony, an event marking the official union of the Great Allegheny Passage and the C&O Canal Towpath, an 185-mile trail that begins in Washington. They camped in Confluence last night and will pitch their tents in Cedar Creek Park tonight.

McElhinny said the students are making daily entries in their journals about their experiences on the passage, the non-motorized, multipurpose trail that extends 150 miles from Pittsburgh to Cumberland. They also are taking pictures with disposable cameras provided by the conservancy, the nation’s largest trails organization.

Although the 500 bicyclists from 34 states and the District of Columbia are riding an average of about 45 miles a day, the students pedal about half that distance. The youngsters ride in the morning, have lunch with the other riders and then are bused to that night’s campsite. They also have been participating in nature- and history-related activities.

McElhinny said Gallina Naim of the Manchester’s Craftsmen’s Guild, coordinator of the partnership program with the arts academy, was instrumental in getting the students on what is now the longest non-motorized, multipurpose trail in the nation.

Congratulations to all.

For more information about the Allegheny Trail Alliance, the coalition of seven rail-trail groups that is building and maintaining the Great Allegheny Passage, go to www.atatrail.org. For more information on the conservancy, go to www.railstotrails.org.

BikeFest under way

BikeFest, Pittsburgh’s annual celebration to raise awareness of the bike as a fun, healthy and environmentally friendly way to get around, began yesterday and continues through July 8.

For more information, go to www.bike-pgh.org/events/bikefest or e-mail: bikefest@bike-pgh.org.

(Larry Walsh can be reached at lwalsh@post-gazette.com and 412-263-1488. )