You might not ever find a retired person who does more work than Jocelyn Dodge.

She works with the Restore Our Creek Coalition and the Friends of Thompson Park. She serves as the president of the bard for Butte’s Center for the Performing Arts. That is just to name a few.

The Montpelier, Vermont native moved to the Treasure State in the late 1970s to attend the University of Montana. After changing her major multiple times, she graduated in 1982 with a recreation services degree.

Jocelyn worked for the Missoula city parks department before moving on to a job at Lone Pine State Park near Kalispell.

In 1991, Jocelyn moved to Butte to work for the Forest Service. She served as a recreation forester for several jurisdictions in Southwest Montana, including Butte-Silver Bow. Jocelyn retired in December of 2019, but that has hardly slowed her down.

She is busy doing something every single day. When she’s not working hard, she is playing hard. Part of the reason she is so busy is that she is taking advantage of some of the recreation opportunities that she helped create.

The legacy Jocelyn left behind from her career will long be remembered by the recreation community. She was instrumental in building the 30 plus miles of trails around Thompson Park. She worked to restore old Milwaukee Road trestle, and she helped build the Continental Divide Trail in the area.

Today, that trail is used by so many, including racers on the Tour Divide that we see in town nearly every day of the summer. It has been used for the Wolfman Continental Dive Trail Race, the Butte 100 mountain bike race and the recently-started Copper Kings 100, a 100-mile running race.

None of that would be possible without all the great work Jocelyn put in during her career and beyond.

Listen to this episode of the ButteCast as Joscelyn talks about growing up in Vermont and moving to Montana and her years at the University of Montana. Listen as she talks about her work in Missoula and how she was reluctant to move to Butte because of our reputation.

Listen as the talks about the work she did at Thompson Park and the CDT. Listen as she talks about working with so many groups and great people over the years. Listen in to hear that she has no plans of ever leaving the Mining City.

Today’s episode is presented by Thriftway Super Stops. Download the TLC app and start saving today.