Retired UM professor evacuated from Beirut

Three officials from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, including one from Maine, were among the first wave of Americans to be evacuated from Lebanon on Monday.

David Field, a retired University of Maine forestry professor, was airlifted from Beirut to Cyprus along with Dave Startzell, executive director, and Marrianne Skeen, former chairwoman, said Brian King, ATC spokesman in Harpers Ferry, W.Va.

The three had been in Beirut since July 7 to help design, implement and manage a Lebanon Mountain Trail, King told The Associated Press in an e-mail.

Once the fighting broke out, the three were restricted to Beirut, and by the weekend they were unable to leave their hotel, King said.

An estimated 25,000 Americans are in Lebanon. By late Monday only 64 were known to have departed. Most of the first Americans to depart were removed by U.S. helicopters, some of which flew to a British base on Cyprus.

In Hampden, Maine, Sally Field said she received a call from her husband, who said he’d arrived safely in Cyprus.

She said her husband never felt that he was in danger, but he was ready to leave Lebanon. Because Cyprus was full of people in the same predicament, it was unclear when he and the others would make it home, she said.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia’s Spring Mountain to Maine’s Mount Katahdin.

Startzell has served as executive director since 1986. Field, who retired from UMaine a month ago, is a former president of the ATC board. Skeen, of Decatur, Ga., is a retired research microbiologist at Emory University.