Searching HI & LO: A Georgia Woman's Mission to Build the Longest Paved Trail in America
After earning a bachelor’s in landscape architecture from the University of Georgia in 2008, Mary Charles Howard quickly put her talents to work and found her stride as a local entrepreneur. She’s owned and operated her own Landscape Architecture design firm since 2010. At the same time as starting her own LA firm, she combined her love of community and small business with a passion for food and bicycling to launch Athens Food Tours and Georgia Cycle Tours. Many full stomachs and happy customers later, she sold the tour companies and focused on economic development with Athens-based W&A Engineering. Mary Charles then moved on to become the Executive Director of the nonprofit Athensmade, launched to help create resources for local companies to build their brands and attract talent to the community.
Her next entrepreneurial move came after four years of being frustrated with a lack of safe cycling and economic opportunities in her hometown of Sandersville and Mary Charles decided to take matters into her own hands. In 2019, she launched the Georgia Hi-Lo Trail. After seeing the success of Athens’ Firefly Trail, she decided to build on the great work of that trail by extending Firefly Trail’s original 39-mile trail south another 200 miles with the Georgia Hi-Lo Trail – through Sandersville and beyond – ending in Savannah. Upon completion, the Georgia Hi-Lo Trail will be the longest paved trail in all of America.
Immediately after launching the Georgia Hi-Lo Trail, she started the Kids Bike League, a program of the Hi- Lo Trail that gets kids ages 2nd -6th grade on a bike in rural communities in middle, east and coastal Georgia. Kids Bike League currently operates monthly rides and summer camps in four rural Georgia towns.
The Hi-Lo Trail has been receiving a lot of press lately. There was a recent article about her in the AJC that was titled “A Georgia Woman’s Audacious plan” and she had a radio interview on FM 95.5 and the interviewer ended by saying “I wouldn’t bet against Mary Charles."