celebRating Naral WondeRs & MedailLe cnNectionS

By Nancy J. Parisi

A love of hiking, a longing to be surrounded by nature and a desire to unplug from technology created a foundation of friendship for three Medaille Mavericks and longtime friends. Jennifer Hillman ’96 and William McKeever ’96, class of 1996 graduates who are now married, met at Medaille in 1993 as fellow adult learners and co-workers in Medaille’s Office of Institutional Advancement. Later that year, Courtney Grim, MFA, an associate professor in Medaille’s Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, was hired to lead the institution’s newly formed multimedia lab, and the three became quick friends.

Around the same time, a local hiking guide titled, Secret Places of Western New York and Southern Ontario: 25 Scenic Trails, was becoming increasingly popular. The book was authored by the late Bruce Kershner, a nationally-recognized and honored environmentalist, ecologist and old growth tree authority. As nature enthusiasts, Hillman and McKeever used Kershner’s book as a guide to go on many hiking adventures together.

A graduate of Medaille’s former bachelor’s degree program in management of nonprofit organizations, McKeever raves about his experience and the time he spent at Medaille. “It was a great opportunity for me to enhance my skills and to grow myself and my career,” he says. “My degree was very focused and unique, and I had exceptionally accessible instructors and a supportive, diverse group of peers. There was a spirit of camaraderie, and it was a great campus environment.”

Thanks to his chosen career path, McKeever first met Kershner.

“I was hired to be the executive director of the Buffalo Audubon Society,” he says. “They were having their big annual dinner with about 200 people in attendance. That evening, I was introduced to the membership, and at the same dinner, Bruce was being installed as a new trustee. So, as luck would have it, we started at the Audubon Society on the very same day.”

McKeever and Kershner worked together for over five years. “Bruce was not only a board member, but he was the chair of the Audubon Society’s Conservation Committee and worked on public advocacy,” says McKeever. “He was a great guy, and Jennifer, Courtney and I all hiked with him at one point or another.”

Truth be told, Hillman and McKeever were close followers of Kershner’s work before they even met him.

“My husband and I began dating in 1995, and we had a copy of the Secret Places book that we used for outdoor adventures,” says Hillman. “The book was really close to our hearts because it marked the very beginning of our dating relationship. When it was first published, there was no such thing as a GPS to plug in coordinates, so it was awesome to be able to follow Bruce’s directions and hand-drawn maps. I loved it so much that I bought dozens of copies over the years and would give them to people all the time. By the mid to late 2000’s, the book was out of print and getting hard to find.”

In addition to remaining good friends with Hillman and McKeever after their graduation, Grim made her own personal connection with Kershner. “I met Bruce on a hike down in Allegany in 1999,” she says. “He took a group of us to see an old-growth forest, as part of the Allegany Nature Pilgrimage, a yearly meet-up for people who are into exploring all things outside. There were a lot of academics, naturalists, botanists and photographers there sharing knowledge, and Bruce led a hike to the bear caves that are in the book. He had such a great sense of humor, and he would encourage everyone to stop, observe, look and be curious. I will always remember that advice.”

In 2018, over 10 years after Kershner’s passing, creative inspiration hit Hillman and McKeever during a holiday break hiking trip. The couple’s conversation that day sparked an idea to create a revived and revised Secret Places of Western New York guidebook.

“My husband and I were out hiking at Eighteen Mile Creek near our house,” says Hillman. “We were enjoying ourselves and the beautiful winter landscape, and I remember us talking and saying, ‘You know, if Bruce wrote a second book, this would be in it.’ And then we laughed and talked about what other Western New York sites would be in his second book of secret hikes.”

Inspired by the idea, Hillman and McKeever knew they would have to get permission from the Kershner family to create a second edition of the guidebook.

“As soon as the Kershner family met us, they realized our intent was genuine,” says Hillman. “They lent us Bruce’s original copy of Secret Places: Scenic Treasures of Western New York and Southern Ontario, along with all of his research notes.”

Unbeknownst until this point, Kershner had been working on a revision to Secret Places before he died in 2007. Throughout 2019 and 2020, plans came together for the revised second edition, so that Kershner’s legacy and inspirations would reach new generations of outdoors enthusiasts. Secret Places of Western New York: 25 Scenic Hikes, the finished product in bookstores now, would ultimately come to fruition, thanks to the creative team rooted in their Medaille connections.

Grim, a talented photographer and multimedia artist, worked alongside Hillman and McKeever. With Kershner’s original book as their foundation, the trio came together to expand the content and reach through a new publication. The new photographs, all taken by Grim, accompany descriptions and facts about the 25 featured hiking locations.

“It was totally a labor of love,” says Grim. “Everyone involved with the book loves to be outdoors.”

Fast forward to today. Secret Places of Western New York: 25 Scenic Hikes, published in 2022, showcases sites in the Niagara, Buffalo, Rochester and Southern Tier regions. In place of the original Southern Ontario sites, seven new hikes within Western New York were added to the guidebook. Created with permission from the family’s estate, Kershner’s daughter Libby wrote the book’s foreword, and her family is pictured throughout.

Grim’s photographs are presented alongside detailed, handdrawn maps and practical tips for hikers, including leaving word with someone that hiking is happening and signing trailhead logbooks. The book also offers advice about wearing proper footwear and clothing, and carrying insect repellent, maps and a first aid kit.

Each of the 25 spots is thoroughly labeled with usage icons, noting amenities like public restrooms, playground facilities and such things as waterfalls, places for bird watching, if leashed dogs are allowed, the best seasons for a location to be experienced and if outdoor art is part of the scenery. Featured hikes include those that are well known and some that are indeed more secret, like the Artpark trails alongside the Niagara Gorge, Sodus Point and Chimney Bluffs, Little Rock City and DeVeaux Woods.

To collaborate on the project, Grim enlisted the services of another Medaille Maverick, her mentee Ga’Vintay McGhee ’22.

McGhee’s role was to meticulously scan and digitally update all of Kershner’s original, hand-drawn maps, as these maps are the key to finding many of the “secret places” within the book. All of the maps had major changes since the original publication in 1993, making McGhee’s role pivotal in the production of the new book.

Working alongside Hillman and Grim, McGhee digitally removed and created new access points, staircases, roads, parks and trail markers. He also scanned several boxes of Kershner’s original photographic slides of hundreds of natural sites throughout eastern North America, creating a modern historical record of Kershner’s lifework on old growth forests and unique areas for others to eventually access.

McGhee, who moved to Washington State to work for the Seattle Service Corps after graduating from Medaille with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, is now working with Northwest Immigrants Rights Project as a legal coordinator and is studying to take the Law School Admission Test. He holds his time at Medaille, including working on the book, in high regard.

“I was a founding member and president of Medaille’s Photography Club,” he says. “That involvement paved the way for me to get more experience on campus. I also worked closely with Courtney for my work-study position during my freshman year, and kept learning and working alongside her after that. Through Courtney, and thanks to her, I worked on Kershner’s images.”

McGhee feels blessed to have gotten the opportunity to contribute to such a meaningful and tangible project, thanks to his Medaille experience. “I was the only student hired to work on the project,” he says. “I am really into film, and through scanning Kershner’s pictures, I could see the adventures he went on. I was really inspired to go on hikes myself.”

Grim extols the benefits of hiking and time spent outdoors. “It is relaxing, and is time away from technology,” she says. “It is so important to unplug sometimes. I have a rule that Saturdays are my day — I do not plan or schedule, and I spend as much time outside as possible.”

When asked if there will be another follow-up book, McKeever indicated the future could indeed bring more collaboration for their team. “There are actually a couple different books in the planning stages,” he says. “Jennifer, Courtney and I have made a great creative team. I look forward to future projects.”

Overall, Grim, Hillman and McKeever are grateful for their Medaille work and life experiences, and for the way the University has supported their book.

“Jennifer and I got career advancement out of our Medaille experiences,” says McKeever. “We got a marriage out of it, and we got a friend out of it with Courtney. It truly is a community, and it persists and has been a great thing for us. The book is just one facet of it. This publication was a great opportunity, and I am so pleased we were able to marshal all of our Medaille-ness into it.”