Town of Grand Island to dedicate nature trail Sunday in honor of Carr

The town of Grand Island will dedicate a new nature trail Sunday in honor of a longtime Island conservationist.

Friends, family and town officials will gather Sept. 18 at 5:30 p.m. at the Grand Island Nike Base Park, 3278 Whitehaven Road, to formally dedicate the Joanne Pinner Carr Memorial Nature Trail. Sunday's event will include a ribbon-cutting and guided tour of the new trail.

The program is co-sponsored by the Grand Island Conservation Commission and the Town Recreation Department. Attending will be members of those two organizations, Town Board members and members of the Carr family and friends.

Joanne Pinner Carr was the first chair and longtime member of the Grand Island Conservation Commission, from 1971 to 2006.

"She was very dedicated," said current Conservation Commission Chairwoman Dorothy Westhafer. "Her father was a forester, so she was brought up to enjoy nature."

As the first person to chair the commission, Carr "had to stake out the program," Westhafer said. One program included sending spruce seedlings home with schoolchildren, an endeavor that accounts for many of the enormous spruce trees in Island back yards today, Westhafer said. Carr also established a program to send a student to a weeklong camp run by the Department of Environmental Conservation. She was very generous with her time as well, Westhafer said, speaking to many groups on the mission of the group she chaired.