It came in the mail this week, the calendar-sized, bright orange flier I eagerly await each year toward the end of September.

The Walktober schedule of events. You can find it online at www.thelastgreenvalley.org

I love Walktober. The event has grown so much that it can’t be contained in just the four weekends of the month that used to be called Walking Weekends. Remember when it was just one Walking Weekend?

The 20th anniversary Walktober 2010 features 99 separate events, several of them repeated at various times throughout the month, in towns stretching from Norwich and Preston at the southern tip of the Last Green Valley National Heritage Corridor northward into southern Massachusetts. An alphabetized listing of another 26 events follows the traditional listing of walking tours, woods hikes and cemetery strolls.

Norwich always is featured prominently in the schedule, thanks to several regular walk leaders such as city Historian Dale Plummer, cemetery historian David Oat and members of the Norwich Historical Society and the Guns of Norwich.

Unfortunately, one original walk leader didn’t make it to the 20th anniversary.

“For 18 years, Rene Dugas of Taftville offered wonderful tours of his Ponemah Mills neighborhood for Walktober,” a memoriam to Dugas inside the flier cover reads. “He passed away on December 27, 2009 at the venerable age of 100. Rene was a very special walk leader who brought many personal stories to his tours.”

This year, in a tribute to Dugas, Plummer will lead the “Walking Tour of Taftville: Remembering Rene Dugas” twice during Walktober. The tour will take place at 10 a.m. on Oct. 9 and Oct. 16, with a rain date for either event on Oct. 24. The tour starts at the Knights of Columbus at the intersection of Route 97-169 and South Second Avenue. The tour will take participants through the streets of the Taftville National Historic District which Dugas loved so much.

I remember Dugas well into his 80s and 90s leading the tour, spry and alert, naming buildings and recalling families. When he finally no longer could lead the walk, he opened his home and his invaluable photographic collection – donated by his heirs to the Otis Library – to visitors in a delightful storytelling session.

Kudos to the Walktober organizers for recognizing his many contributions to local history and heritage.