Miami Student

Issue date: 11/9/07 Section: Campus

The Dr. Paul Daniel Trail Volunteer Cabin is named in honor of Paul Daniel, professor emeritus of zoology at Miami. He will be honored Saturday at Hueston Woods.

After dedicating his life to teaching, 28 years of which were spent at Miami University, Paul Daniel is living out his retirement in Maryland with his wife. But over a decade later Daniel, professor emeritus of zoology, has yet to be forgotten by the Oxford and Miami communities.

This Saturday, as part of the Trail Weekend conference at Hueston Woods, the dedication of the Dr. Paul Daniel Trail Volunteer Cabin will become official.

According to Hueston Woods bike trail steward Bob "Biker Bob" Feldman, the cabin will be used as a meeting place, a classroom and an information center for trail users.

"(Daniel) was a local trail activist and he was instrumental in bringing trail awareness up until he retired and moved away," Feldman said. "He used to lead hikes around the whole park every year and organize volunteer efforts, so when we built a trail cabin we thought we'd dedicate it to him for his efforts."

Funding for the cabin came from a local foundation that provided building materials to the mountain bike trail crew and other volunteers. The trail crew also received help from Dustin Weida, a graduate of Miami's department of architecture.

In addition to the dedication that will take place this weekend, an unofficial dedication was made to Daniel in mid-October while he was visiting Ohio.

"I was highly honored to be asked here and I was very pleased that several of my friends were there," Daniel said. "Hueston Woods and Oxford have always been a very special place in

my life."

During his teaching career at Miami, Daniel, who feels that Oxford is lucky to have Hueston Woods so nearby, led a hike around the park each year on Martin Luther King Day.

"The students were all off so I thought they could come out and hike with me," Daniel said. "I found out that a lot of them would rather stay in bed and sleep, but a lot of townspeople came out to hike with me and we'd hike all the way around the park."

Don Kaufman, retired zoology professor and director of the Hefner Museum, believes that Daniel deserves to be honored by the cabin dedication because of all the scientific work that he did at Hueston Woods and all of the hikes that he organized and led around the park.

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