When Joe Pausback’s father Bernard “Bernie” Pausback died earlier this year, he and his family wanted Bernie to be remembered by his steadfast love of the outdoors and his contributions to an Aspen School District program that has only grown since Bernie served during its inaugural year.
Bernie was among the first group of teachers at the Aspen School District to embark on an Outdoor Education trip with their eighth-grade students in 1968. What started as a weeklong backpacking trip through the Elk Mountains with an overnight solo experience for each student expanded into the Outdoor Ed and Experiential Education programs offered at the district today.
Students in all grades are offered educational experiences beyond the classroom, including hiking, climbing, rafting, backpacking and more.
Joe and his family asked OutdoorEd alumni to donate $24 to the Aspen Education Foundation’s OutdoorEd fund in honor of Bernie, in lieu of memorial gifts. It is $1 for every hour of the eighth-grade solo experience during OutdoorEd.
“He was about the outdoors, outdoor education. He was also about supporting kids,” Joe said of his father. “It felt like a very appropriate manifestation of his life’s work.”
Aspen School District students participate in an Outdoor Education program in the woods. The Aspen Education Foundation funds a large portion of the OutdoorEx and Experiential Education programs, including scholarships, teacher training and a full-time OutdoorEd coordinator position. Courtesy of AEF
The donations came at the same time that AEF, which funds much of the OutdoorEd and ExEd programs, began considering an endowment.
Amid the uncertainty of state funding for education and ASD’s own budget woes, AEF leaders wanted to ensure the program would remain no matter the funding picture at the district.
“Let’s say something happens to the economy, OutdoorEd is always taken care of,” said AEF Executive Director Cynthia Chase. “We feel like that is a really signature, life-changing, character-developing program in our public schools that sets our public school apart from schools across the country.”
AEF funds programs at ASD on an annual basis through fundraising efforts, like its annual Flamingo fundraiser. It funded a new OutdoorEd coordinator position at the school district last year.
Since Katherine Gleason took over the role, ASD became the only public school in the country to receive accreditation from the Association of Experiential Education.
AEF also funds scholarships for students to participate in the program and funds teacher training programs and wilderness certifications.
In case fundraising dips, the endowment will ensure scholarships and other supports for the OutdoorEd and ExEd programs aren’t impacted, Chase said. AEF wants to build endowments for other programs it oversees, but focused on OutdoorEd and ExEd because of their outsized impact on students’ education.
“On a larger scale, when you think about what’s happening to our environment and our climate, we are raising generations of kids who have this ingrained appreciation for the outdoors around them and I think that’s so important today,” Chase said. “(We) view it as one of the most unique and important and crucial parts of our kids’ education, and so the ability to build an endowment so that it is always there. In 20 years it’s still there, 30 years it’s still there, no matter what happens with school funding or fundraising, that will always be there.”
AEF wants to build a $10 million endowment for the program. It received a combined $1 million toward the endowment from the Penner Family Foundation, and Melony and Adam Lewis, and has so far received nearly 100 $24 donations in memory of Bernie.
AEF also hopes the funding can help build on the support for teachers who lead the programs.
“For years, the teachers have made it happen,” said AEF member Craig Rogers. “It’s a big time commitment for teachers, you know, it’s not your typical you walk in the classroom at eight o’clock and leave at four, you’re out in the field, regardless of what the trip is, whether you’re on a river trip or backcountry trip … it’s a big ask for people to do that.”
“They’re excited to participate in the program and excited to put in the incredible number of hours, not only in the field, but pre-planning and full-circle to make it happen, and to make it happen not only in an effective, but a very safe way too,” he added.
Bernie served on many more OutdoorEd trips than just the inaugural 1968 trip. Growing up in Aspen and going on the trips himself, Joe said they became as formative to him as they were to his father.
“They kind of just blend into all the stories I heard over the years … because life happened on OutdoorEd trips, good and bad, but having also grown up in it, those are pretty formative experiences,” Joe said. “These are important memories for my peers who grew up in Aspen and I assume that means for everyone.”
