ATHENS, Ga. -- Friends of Meredith Emerson were distraught when she disappeared while hiking in north Georgia on New Year's Day a year ago. They were devastated when the 24-year-old University of Georgia graduate was found murdered one week later.
But Ms. Emerson's many friends were determined to make sure she will never be forgotten. In the year since she and her dog vanished Jan. 1, 2008, near Blood Mountain, they have raised $35,000 for causes important to the former resident of Longmont, Colo.
Friends who started the Right to Hike Foundation raised money through a restaurant promotion, a 5K race and a banquet. The foundation donated $5,000 to the university to help endow a scholarship to study in France, as Ms. Emerson did. The group also bought 15 GPS units and distributed them to hiking outposts in north Georgia, paying the $99 annual subscription fee for each. Lost hikers can use the GPS to signal rescuers.
A former drifter, Gary Michael Hilton, is serving a life term for killing Ms. Emerson.
Those involved in the Right to Hike try not to think about Ms. Emerson's death.
"We just want to remember her for who she was and the life she lived," said Julia Karrenbauer, Ms. Emerson's roommate.
The friends who began the foundation have also gotten a trail named for her: Meredith's Trail, at the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center. Ms. Karrenbauer said Ms. Emerson, who lived in Gwinnett County, often hiked there with her dog, Ella.
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