Everglades Ranger Sandy Dayhoff by Krista Schlyer/Wayfarer Photography |
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By Connie Toops
North Dakota in the 1960s. A Native American man tells his son about a park ranger he’d recently met—a man in a broad—brimmed hat who cares for the trees and the river. The awestruck child imagines a ranger at least ten feet tall, with the best job in the world.
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Meanwhile, in Maryland, an inquisitive boy with a butterfly net pursues insects on the family farm, his curiosity piqued when he can’t identify his finds in popular Golden Field Guides.
At the same time, a teenage girl accompanies her neighbor to the Florida Everglades, and her fascination with the lush plants and abundant birds lingers long after she returns home.
Flash forward four decades later. Gerard Baker has since assumed the duties of his childhood idol, working at Mount Rushmore National Monument. Keith Langdon, the Maryland farm boy, can now tell visitors to Great Smoky Mountains National Park that there’s a beetle with his name on it: Anillus langdonii, to be precise. And the Miami teenager, Sandy Dayhoff, has spent more than 30 years as a ranger, introducing young people to the Everglades ecosystem.
Baker, Langdon, and Dayhoff belong to an extraordinary corps of about 8,000 National Park Service (NPS) employees who proudly wear the ranger uniform. Although rangers in the 388 units in the system dress identically—whether working in immense natural tracts or intimate cultural and historic sites—they’re actually diverse specialists in botany, ecology, history, archaeology, and curatorial sciences. The 1916 Organic Act, which created the National Park Service, pledges employees to “preserve the scenery, natural resources, and historic objects unimpaired for current and future generations,” and these three rangers embody the act’s ideals. Despite worrisome budget cuts that currently provide only two-thirds of the funding needed to operate the National Park System, most rangers consider their careers far more than a 9-to-5 obligation. Rangering is their lifestyle. |
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| So You Want To Be A Ranger?
Ask any veteran park ranger why he or she does this job. The answer: “For the love of it.” Rangers take pride in protecting the crown jewels of natural and human history and in sharing their knowledge. If you’d like to find out what it takes to join the ranks, look into NPS career opportunities at www.nps.gov/personnel. To learn about specific qualifications necessary for ranger positions, and find links to volunteer and internship opportunities, click here. For information on seasonal jobs, visit www.sep.nps.gov or call 877-554-4550.
The Association of National Park Rangers (www.anpr.org) has published Live the Adventure: Join the National Park Service, a guide to becoming an NPS park ranger. It describes types of appointments and offers tips about what classes to take in high school and college. Copies are $5, and may be obtained by contacting ANPRbusiness@anpr.org.
The Student Conservation Association (SCA) provides high school and college students with volunteer opportunities and conservation internships in parks and on other public lands. Many of today’s park managers and conservation leaders started their careers as SCA volunteers. See www.sca-inc.org for more information.
Discover Life In America (www.dlia.org) is the nonprofit organization that coordinates All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) activities in Great Smoky Mountains NP. Adult and student volunteers are welcome. An Upward Bound program aimed at 11th-grade low-income students talented in math and science includes summer camp at Western Carolina University. Participants can choose ATBI related projects, collect samples for six weeks, and publish their findings. | |
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