Page 16 - 2012_winter_issue

rails to trails u winter.12 14
Walk the Talk,
Ride the Bike
By Mike Hendricks
Photo by LG Patterson Darwin Hindman:
As a citizen activist in the 1980s, Darwin Hindman
helped convince then-Missouri Governor John Ashcroft
and the state legislature to convert an unused rail line
into what remains the longest continuous rail-trail in the
United States: the237-mile Katy Trail State Park.Ten, as
a fve-term mayor of Columbia, Mo., from 1995 to 2010,
Hindman worked tirelessly to expand that city’s system of
trails, bike lanes and parks. He was instrumental in secur-
ing a $25 million federal grant that Columbia is using to
develop a non-motorized transportation system that will
allow residents to go car-free, if they choose.
“Te neat thing in my mind is this guy walked the talk
and rode the bike,” says Gary Ristow, former recreation
services director for Columbia and now director of parks
and recreation in the Kansas City suburb of Lenexa, Kan.
Make that “rides” the bike. Even at 78, Hindman rare-
ly misses a day in the saddle, and he’s still an active voice
in the trails community (indeed he received a Doppelt
Family Rail-Trail Champions Award in October). When
I caught up with him in July, though, he was in the
midst of a pedal-free, summer-long vacation, hiking and
paddling in Minnesota’s canoe country.
First as a citizen activist and later as a fve-term
mayor of Columbia, Mo., Hindman worked
tirelessly to expand the city’s systems of trails,
bike lanes and parks.