Imagine spending your career as a college professor —  then spending the next half century out in the wilderness working as a sort of history detective. Such is the mid-life adjustment Don Buck chose after retiring from De Anza College in Cupertino, California. He’s been hunting the old pioneer trails ever since, working as historian for the group Trails West. His office is crowded with books, maps and his cherished diaries. At last count he has 600 diaries in the file cabinets. All were written by pioneers who came out on the California and Oregon Trails. In these diaries are the clues that help Professor/Detective Buck rediscover the actual trails. That’s what makes him a History Hero — half a lifetime researching the routes of the Great Western Migration.