Daily New Journal Article

MURFREESBORO — At age 65, Jim Schroeder looked death in the face, so to speak.

But the Rutherford County Chapter of Tennessee Trails Association hiking group helped save his life.

“In 1993, I had a heart attack,” says Schroeder, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday.

Although he had surgery to correct a blockage that brought on the heart attack, Schroeder knew he’d need to change his lifestyle.

Weak and out of shape, it took Schroeder more than a year to recover from his heart attack. But his health crisis was a wake-up call for him to take better care of himself.

During his recovery, Schroeder eventually retired from his job as an engineer with Pillsbury in Murfreesboro. He and his wife, Joan, both Milwaukee natives, remained in Middle Tennessee because they liked the area so much.

Soon he began eating healthier and his wife, a breast cancer survivor, encouraged him to find some sort of physical activity to rebuild the strength of his heart.

“My wife happened to spot an ad in The Daily News Journal about a local hiking chapter,” Schroeder says. “I went to a meeting (of Tennessee Trails) and I’ve been hooked ever since.”

The Tennessee Trails Association’s monthly meeting in Rutherford County is at 7 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month at the Wilderness Station in Barfield Crescent Park, 697 Veterans Parkway.

At first, he simply went on scheduled hikes with the group. Every month hikes are scheduled across the state. But members also do a lot of community service, including trail-building projects.

As an engineer by trade, Schroeder was able to utilize his skills to help design and build hundreds of trails throughout the state of Tennessee.

“A big project was the building of the Cumberland Trail, which is a hiking trail that runs from Chattanooga to the Cumberland Gap National Park (near the Kentucky/Tennessee/Virginia borders), which is close to 300 miles,” Schroeder explains. “I did some preliminary scouting in some areas, did some trail design and actually built some of the trail. The wilderness trails ... I built about 90 percent of those.”

Page

If you’ve ever hiked around Barfield Crescent Park in southern Rutherford County, or walked along the paved trail near the Wilderness Station there, you’ve experienced the work of Schroeder. He also planned the Stones River Greenway system in Murfreesboro.

Not only has he been active with building the Cumberland Trail, but Barfield Park wilderness trails and various other areas throughout the state such as Stillhouse Hollow Falls State Natural Area near Columbia, trails at Edgar Evins State Park and Walls of Jericho State Natural Area near the Alabama/Tennessee border. Schroeder has also been instrumental in building the Great Eastern Trail, which utilizes existing trails to link with paths connected to the great Appalachian Trail to extend paths from Alabama to the Finger Lakes Trail in New York.

“I’ve gotten the reputation around the state that when somebody wants to build trails, they call me and say, ‘Jim, can you help?’” Schroeder says.

Recently, at an 80th birthday celebration, Schroeder was honored for his dedication and accomplishments with trail building.

First, he was honored by the Cumberland Trail Conference by being placed in the Hall of Fame, which spotlights significant volunteer service.

By order of Chattanooga’s Mayor Ron Littlefield, the City of Chattanooga also recognized Schroeder for his contributions in building the Great Eastern Trail from Soddy Daisy, Tenn., through Chattanooga to Lookout Mountain.

“He’s so dedicated to his causes and he gets the job done,” says Anna Bertram, a fellow hiker and member of Tennessee Trails Association. “He’s accomplished all these wonderful things and he’s had a reprieve for 20 years.”

The awards ceremony only highlighted “the tip of the iceberg” of what all Schroeder has done in the trail-building realm, Bertram says.

“They couldn’t fit everything on (the awards plaques),” Bertram says.

But the reprieve Schroeder earned has recently been halted.

At the first of this year, he underwent knee surgery. But he was back the following week with pneumonia. Earlier this month a health scare ended Schroeder’s trail-hiking career all together. With a total of seven bypasses — “bypasses to bypass some of the bypasses” — recent heart trouble sent him back to the doctor. One of the bypasses is occluded and he spent a week in the hospital. He’s also battled pneumonia in recent weeks.

Although he needs another operation to repair the occlusion, “there is no more room” in his heart for surgical correction.

“There’s nothing they can do about it surgically ... because of the size and bend of the vessel,” Schroeder says. “My activity is now restricted.”

He may not be climbing every mountain, but the heart issue hasn’t stopped Schroeder from exercising. Many days, you’ll find him walking along the Stones River Greenway “a mile at a time.”

The restrictions haven’t changed his “positive outlook,” Bertram says.

“Life was never promised to be easy on this Earth, but you deal with what you got,” Schroeder says. “I still feel blessed at what I can do at 80.”