Growing up in Los Gatos below what is now Midpen’s El Sereno Open Space Preserve, Jay Thorwaldson learned to ride a horse when he was just 3 years old. He spent his childhood riding the ridges and valleys of the Santa Cruz Mountains, exploring from Mount Umunhum to the town of Alma, now under Lexington Reservoir. Growing up with near unlimited access to these hillsides instilled in him the importance of permanently protecting the land for future generations.
With such a beginning, it’s not surprising that Thorwaldson played a key role in the formation of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. Working as a reporter for the Palo Alto Times, he created a beat for himself covering the region’s parks, open spaces and baylands. When Nonette Hanko, a Midpen founder and former board director, expressed to him her concerns about losing the wild places she knew as a child, he sparked an approach she hadn’t considered. “I told her environmentalists needed to do what they did in the East Bay in 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, and form a park district to buy the land at fair market value in order to safely preserve it in perpetuity,” Thorwaldson recalled.
Thorwaldson shared that conversation with his editor, Alexander Bodi, who asked him to draft an editorial on the subject, which ran on February 16, 1970. That editorial, in turn, gave Hanko the path she needed to organize others toward a lasting solution.
“For me there are three takeaways,” Thorwaldson said. “A knowledge of history is important in mapping future choices. The press has a vital role to play in terms of presenting information and ideas that can generate the all-important responses from individuals and, as Margaret Mead once observed, one person working with others can make a huge difference – in this case a 65,000-acre difference — for many generations to come.” Thorwaldson retired in 2011 after a 50-year career in journalism. He now lives in El Dorado County, still surrounded by open space and exploring the trails.