Groundwork Celebrates Mary McDermott Cook And Garrett Boone In Dallas’ Newest Party World — The Other Side Of The Trinity
To add to the “cool” factor was the fact that Margaret McDermott (Mary’s mom) was on hand and Grace Cook (Mary’s dotter) was ramrodding the event.
Grace welcomed the group and introduced Groundwork Executive Director Peter Payton. Sounding a bit like Odysseus, he told how he’d grown up in Oak Cliff, went to Alaska, returned to Dallas and was introduced to the Great Trinity Forest. But now instead of Ulysses’ ship, Peter proudly told of a “wonderful Jeep outside” that Mary gave us.
Next on stage was Mary herself, who shared the news with the crowd that she had just two minutes to say stuff that would take 500 to say — “Gail and I call [Peter] the Pied Piper. We have the largest urban forest in the world. We’re Texas; of course, we do! The Trinity Forest has been denigrated by the city. . . Peter’s been so successful, the city doesn’t know what to do with him. We picked up 70 tons of trash; 10,000 tires. Trinity River in Dallas is a lot bigger than it is in Fort Worth! One river your other honoree loves is Elm Fork. I have been kayaking with Garrett. Were we canoing or kayaking?!”
Peter then introduced Garrett by describing their first meeting. It was after a Trinity Trust board meeting. They started talking about building an eco-classroom — 2,200 acres of awesome wilderness.
The tall, lean Garrett told of the potential of the 10,000 acres of wilderness, flood plain and grassland that needed to be realized by everybody. “It’s a game changer for Dallas! I gave a presentation to the Park Cities Rotary Club, with photos I’d taken. They couldn’t believe it. One woman came up and said, “I moved here from Austin and cried for two weeks. Now, this makes me glad I came to Dallas!”