Retired Veteran Hikes Appalachian Trail to Support Ole Miss Veterans

Borah completed a 2,197-mile journey on foot from Georgia to Maine, traveling the length of the Appalachian Trail on Aug. 6. Throughout the hike, the 38-year Navy veteran promoted a scholarship supporting Ole Miss veterans via his social media on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, using the moniker of "The Hiking Rebel."

"In my career in the military, I saw lots of young people with the absolute ability but without the financial means of attending college coming out of high school, and the military was their way out," he said. "The GI Bill is good, and today it is better than ever, but it is certainly not enough to fully fund your education, especially those folks who are married with small children. 

"I want to help people who were willing to put their careers on hold to serve their country."

The scholarship is named in honor of Kenneth L. Ford, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Ole Miss graduate Borah met while tailgating in the Grove.

"He is a good friend who grew up in Gloster and enlisted in the Marines after high school, serving in Vietnam," Borah said. "This scholarship is a way for Ken to leave a legacy at a school he truly loves while helping future student veterans."

The fund has raised more than $10,000 and continues to grow, said Jeremee Alexander, director of the Office of Veteran and Military Services.

"Dave has a heart for veterans," Alexander said. "What he is doing is life-giving. Sometimes that $500 scholarship can change the course of someone's life."

Borah grew up in Illinois and married into the Ole Miss family in 1993 when he wed Ridonna Tyler, a 1990 pharmacy graduate. They have attended football games in Oxford regularly since 2005.

"She'll tell you she converted me to the Rebels," he said.

Before joining the Appalachian Trail's Class of 2026 at Springer Mountain, Georgia, on March 2, Borah spent about a year preparing for the journey.

"In the summer of 2010, I took a group of Boy Scouts, and we hiked about of half the trail's length through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park," he said. "And I knew then, if I got the opportunity, I wanted to walk the whole trail."

During the first few weeks of the adventure, Borah said his body had to adjust to the trail and the elevation. The terrain was rockier and more covered in roots than he had experienced in his training. 

Along the trail, Borah encountered hikers ranging in age from 19 to 90 and representing just about every walk of life.

"The most amazing thing was that your age, gender, income and education didn't matter; everyone was experiencing the same challenges," he said. "And in a world where there is a lot of outside noise that divides us, politics, I don't think that came up once.

"Everyone was pulling for everyone else to make it. If you needed something – food, a charge for your electronics – someone would give it to you. There were nothing but amazing people out there."

Most days, Borah hiked alone, which would give him time to reflect on the trail.

"For most of the trail there were about two dozen of us that kind of stayed in the same general area; some people would get ahead and others would fall behind, but we'd see each other at the same campsite routinely," he said. "Or, you might meet up with someone at a watering hole or when stopped to eat lunch."

By the last month on the trail, that number he hiked with had fallen to three: Kiwi, a female cattle and sheep rancher from New Zealand; Music Man, a farrier from Nashville; and Fancy Feet, a male physical therapist from Atlanta.

"Like everyone, I had some bad days but I couldn't quit," he said. "While I was hiking, I would get these texts from folks I know saying they were praying for me, or they really wished they could be hiking with me, but they couldn't because either they were still working or physically didn't think they could.

"That's what kept me going."

Borah faced several big challenges along the way. One self-imposed challenge came in mid-June in Connecticut, when he pushed through a 27-mile day so he could find a television and watch the Rebels play in the opening game of the College World Series.

Another challenge involved getting to the Kennebec River in Maine at the right time. The river is the only place along the entire trail that does not have a bridge or is too deep to wade across, so hikers must be there when canoes are available to ferry them.

"I had to put in a 14-hour day to get there on time, or lose a day, and that was pretty brutal," he said.

With the trail name of "Rebel," Borah logged 142 days of active journey and 14 "zero" days when he did laundry, resupplied, showered and rested. During hiking days, he averaged about 15.5 miles per day. 

Though the Appalachian Trail is behind him, Borah's fundraising efforts continue. He hopes to raise another $40,000 to fully endow the fund.

He plans to promote the effort Nov. 21 during Ole Miss' military appreciation game against Wofford. He is also considering hiking the more than 3,000-mile Continental Divide Trail through the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to Canada next summer, if that is what it takes.

Borah encourages everyone to support the scholarship.

"I don't think there is a group of people more deserving of the opportunity to further their education than veterans," he said. "They've missed birthdays, anniversaries and even children being born while deployed serving our country.

"Education changes lives, and this is a great way to help them."

Top: David Borah flies an Ole Miss flag at the summit of Mount Katahdin in Maine. Borah, a Navy veteran himself, hiked the Appalachian Trail this summer to raise money for a scholarship for student veterans at the university. Submitted photo