Farewell to Lace Thornberg

It's the end of an era.

The November-December Washington Trails magazine was the last issue for WTA's editor and our longtime colleague, Lace Thornberg.

After nine years at Washington Trails Association - and four job titles - Lace is saying goodbye. And she's not just leaving WTA, she is leaving the country. On November 5, Lace is getting on an airplane and moving to the Phillipines for nine months.

She's too modest to tell you herself, but she's been awarded a prestigious Fulbright scholarship to research how archaeological site museums are managed in the Philippines, and she will work with them on a locally-managed, sustainable museum model.

This will be a return trip to the Philippines for Lace. In 2010, while she was finishing up her Master of Arts in Museology at the UW and working for WTA part-time, she traveled to the Philippines for five weeks to participate in an archaeological dig. Looking to stay connected with that research project and continue her thesis research after graduate school, Lace applied for and was awarded a grant from the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

It might seem a bit of a departure for such a serious hiker, but there are some interesting threads of similarity in museum work and editing an outdoors magazine. 

You can see evidence of her background and curating skills in every issue of Washington Trails over the past two years, from this month's piece that features four WTA members who are landscape painters to the March-April issue that featured Washington's geology. Through her museology lens, Lace has shown us that hiking can be about much more than reaching a destination and taking photographs. Our trails are full of history, of amazing geologic forces and an ever-changing palette of nature.

While the magazine is Lace's parting gift to WTA, I would be remiss not to reflect on the many other ways she has impacted this organization since she joined our staff back in 2002. Her fingerprints are all over WTA, and it is fair to say that it would not be the same place today without her. As first office manager and then development director, her hard work, originality and personal touch helped double the budget over six years. And when she began graduate school, Lace remained part-time at WTA and pitch-hit in a variety of roles, from the website to TrailsFest.

“Working at WTA has changed my life in myriad positive ways,” Lace said, “It has been great to combine my love of hiking with work that is so fulfilling. At the same time, I am looking forward to the challenge and adventure that lies ahead. And I have to admit that I am looking forward to all of the sunshine, too.”

She's sure to find sunshine in the Phillipines, but we will miss Lace's own ray of sunshine in our office every day.

As we are saying good-bye to Lace Thornberg, we are also very pleased to have long-time contributor and avid hiker Eli Boschetto joining the WTA staff as the new Washington Trails editor. Look for his first issue in January.