Summit Project director’s tribute to fallen service members links Maine’s most prominent peaks

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, at least 77 military members from Maine or with strong ties to Maine have died during their time of service.

Greg Johnson doesn’t want any of them to be forgotten.

As executive director of The Summit Project, which honors fallen service members with individualized stones that can be taken on hikes and adventures all over the world, Johnson – with help from other volunteers – works hard to get the word out about the mission.

The Summit Project’s two biggest events are hikes up Maine’s most iconic peaks, Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park in the spring and Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park each fall.

Johnson’s latest idea is to combine these two events.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Marine Corps veteran from Standish will embark on an 11-day, 150-mile trek from the summit of Cadillac to the summit of Katahdin. On his back will be a pack carrying the stone of Westbrook native Shawn McKeough Jr., who was stationed at a U.S. Air Force Base in Arkansas when he was shot and killed in March trying to thwart a gas station robbery. Johnson said this will be the first trek for McKeough’s stone and he’s honored to carry him.

Johnson, 35, has never trekked more than 20 miles. Asked why he’s willing to do that every day for a week and a half, Johnson said it goes back to Sept. 11. He was in high school at the time, still a few years before he would enlist.

“I saw all these men and women who saw this happen and they ran toward the challenge knowing they were putting their lives in danger,” he said. “That means something and needs to continue to mean something.”

The Summit Project was launched in 2013 by another U.S. Marine, David Cote of Bangor, as a sort of living memorial to service members who have died since Sept. 11 – an alternative to the usual static monuments or memorials that exist in cities and towns across the country.

What makes The Summit Project different is that people can take a piece of the memorial with them, literally anywhere.

Greg Johnson carries a flag and a 30-pound backpack as he walks Portland’s Back Cove Trail in preparation for his trek between Cadillac Mountain and Mount Katahdin. His trek is meant to raise awareness and money. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

Here’s how it works:

Volunteers can inquire about a stone – each chosen by a family member to capture their loved one – to take with them on an adventure. Sometimes it’s a vacation. Sometimes a business trip to a far-flung location.

There are two requirements: They must learn about the life of the man or woman represented by the stone and talk about that person during their travel. Not how the person died but how they lived.

And when they return, the volunteer is asked to write a letter to the family of the service member describing where they went and what they saw.

“They live on through these experiences and memories,” Johnson said.

Greg Johnson, executive director of the Summit Project, holds a spirit stone that he carried on a 20-mile training hike in September. For his 150-mile trek between Cadillac Mountain and Mount Katahdin, he will carry the stone of Shawn McKeough Jr., a Westbrook native who was stationed at an Air Force Base in Arkansas when he was shot and killed while trying to stop a robbery. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

The stones represent a wide range of service members who have died in the last 18 years. From David Veverka, a Maine Army National Guardsman who was killed in Iraq in 2006 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his cargo truck, to Orono native Brandon Silk, a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army who died in Afghanistan in 2010 after his Black Hawk helicopter made a hard landing.

The original mission of The Summit Project was to carry stones up Mount Katahdin and leave them there. But park officials said the volunteers needed to follow the “carry in, carry out,” goal, the same as everyone else. The stones vary in size, from as small as a softball to as big as a shoebox and can weigh 10 pounds or more.

Johnson said that ended up being a blessing because it turned the Summit Project into more of a living memorial. Stones have been up Mount Denali, Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Everest, to name a few.

Betsy Hutchins, whose stepson, U.S. Army Cpl. Andrew Hutchins, was killed in 2010 while serving in Afghanistan, said The Summit Project has given her a sense of purpose because she’s been able to connect with other families who share her grief. She’s now on the board of directors and participates in as many events as she can.

Hutchins also has seen the impact of The Summit Project as a Gold Star parent. The stone that represents Andrew Hutchins, who was only 20 when he died, was retrieved by his father from the southern end of West Grand Lake near Princeton, Maine. Since then, it has gone on numerous hikes and adventures.

Hutchins said she has anywhere from 20-30 letters at home.

“We’ve had people call us, even had people over to our house for dinner,” she said. Each interaction is a chance to talk about Andrew.

Hutchins said she likes to think that Andrew has two stones – the classic white gravestone at the Maine Veterans Cemetery in Augusta, and his Summit project stone.

Every time she visits his grave site, even nine years later, it hurts. But the Summit stone, that gives her hope.

In addition to the stones that are available for people to take on adventures, the Summit Project also has created an “honor case” of 20 stones that are rotated in and out periodically. That case has traveled the state and has been on display at various nonprofits, including recently the Elks Lodge in Ellsworth.

Johnson’s trek, which may be a one-time event, is meant to raise awareness first but also to raise money. The nonprofit Summit Project runs on volunteer time but there are costs to plan and coordinate the two annual events and maintain the honor case. The annual budget each year is about $40,000, according to recent tax filings, but Johnson said they try to raise at least $50,000 annually to ensure the organization can live on sustainably after he and the other founders step down.

On the trek that starts Wednesday, he expects to travel about 17 miles each day, from Mount Desert Island, north through Hancock County, then to Bangor, then up to Millinocket to Baxter State Park.

The Summit Project just completed its annual trek up Cadillac Mountain on Saturday. That event featured about 80 hikers.

Johnson, who spent 10 years in the Marine Corps and deployed three times to Iraq and once each to Afghanistan and Japan, said he was fortunate to come back whole, so 150 miles seems like a small sacrifice.

And he’ll have the memories of people like Shawn McKeough and Andrew Hutchins to keep him going.