Anne Melvin: Acting locally

AMC Outdoors, June 2004

By Katharine Wroth

Tobacco gets a bad rap, but it’s the reason Anne Melvin joined the AMC 40 years ago, and it brought the club a devoted volunteer. When she stopped smoking and started hiking, mountains became Melvin’s addiction. She joined the AMC in 1964, conquered the 4,000 footers, and has been a member ever since.

Currently the Conservation co-chair of the New Hampshire Chapter, the Barrington resident has also served — consecutively since 1990 — as its secretary, Programs co-chair, vice chair, and chair. Along the way, she became a trip leader and attended the clubwide Mountain Leadership School. Melvin has found the AMC “a tremendous support system.” She adds, “It makes exercise something you enjoy doing. AMC people are down to earth, and I’ve made great friends."

The clinical social worker — who, at 70, still works full time at the VA Medical Center in Manchester — has found a way to combine her work with a love of travel. This spring, she volunteered in Belize, giving peer talks on post- traumatic stress disorder and domestic violence.

Melvin has also traveled much in Barrington; she has served on its conservation commission for five years. She says her leaning toward conservation began “when I was [chapter] vice chair, and realized I needed to know more. I saw a letter in the local paper looking for volunteers for the town, so I joined and learned more about easements, pollution, and other issues.” She is especially proud of her work on the Isinglass River Protection Project with the state’s Department of Environmental Services, which she got involved in through AMC. She also monitors water quality on the river and is an AMC Visibility Volunteer, gathering air-quality data.

Melvin’s latest conservation incarnation is as the co-leader of a chapter trip this month — with Young Members Co-chair Kelly Omand — to Manchester’s Piscataquog Park, to learn about and remove invasive species. As she works to plan future events with her own co-chair, Mary Harrington, she remains committed to the organization. Her reason is inarguably simple: “AMC does a lot of good.”

— Katharine Wroth is co-editor of AMC Outdoors.