School’s Out – State Parks Are In!

Anyone with grade school or college-age kids already knows that Arkansas’s spring break is coming up fast, March 19-28. Arkansas State Parks are open for business and ready for guests who want safe, outdoor, family-friendly places to play and make memories!

Today’s blog is from Sarah Keating, one of our park staff who has made a family tradition of going Spring Break camping in the State Parks of Arkansas.

Why I Take My Kids Camping in Arkansas State Parks

Every year as my girls get older, they become more involved in school, sports, and other activities. It seems I have less and less time to spend with them doing the things that I love, such as exploring nature and watching sunsets. These are activities that for me hold fond memories of my childhood, and I want to share these things with my children.

Several years ago, my oldest daughter, Courtney, and I took our first spring break camping trip to Woolly Hollow State Park. After much planning, packing, and eager anticipation of sunny days and spring wildflowers, it turned out to be a cold and rainy week. Some people would have just cancelled the plans and stayed home, indoors, but I had made a promise that we would go camping and Courtney’s heart was set on it. Our camping trip was on.

It was one of the most memorable trips we have ever taken and it began our family’s Spring Break camping tradition.

The rain did keep us in our tent at times, where we had tons of fun just spending quiet time together, playing cards, talking about whatever came to our minds, and listening to the rain drip-dropping on our tent’s rain fly.

The Huckleberry Trail at Woolly Hollow State Park.

Finally, it stopped raining, and we took the chance to explore Woolly Hollow’s Huckleberry Trail. We reached a spot where a creek’s high water was up over the trail. It was not unsafe, but it was enough water that we’d need to get our shoes wet to continue our hike. I silently wondered if we should turn back, but Courtney insisted that we take our shoes and socks off and wade out across the icy cold water barefooted.  On the other side, we could put our socks and shoes back on and continue our walk comfortably.

Kids can come up with some of the best ideas.

To me, this was just a small inconvenience, but to my child, this was one of the most fun, adventuresome things we did all week! Such a simple experience–crossing that cold creek barefoot– was exhilarating for us both. I was proud of my daughter for insisting that we keep going. She was tickled that we worked together to solved a problem, and that we did something a bit on the wild side. I love that we will always share the memory of that moment.

Now, I have a second daughter who is old enough to go camping too, and my husband and I make an annual effort to schedule a family camping trip every Spring Break.  We have hung onto several activities over the years that are a must on every trip:

• We always bring a Goosebumps book and read it around the campfire each night.
• We try a new Dutch oven recipe each trip, and some of those recipes have become part of our camping tradition because we liked them so much.
• We keep a journal of all the activities that we do and all the funny things that happen on each trip.
• We always have powdered donuts.
• We always take a family vote to decide which Arkansas State Park we will camp at next. All four of us have different requirements of our destination…Joe wants it to be someplace new that we have never visited as a family, the girls prefer somewhere with a playground, and I want somewhere with water to put my kayak in.
• We like to go to the parks’ interpretive programs, and it’s nice that they usually have a variety of them so we can choose what’s best for our family.
• Besides the programs, we don’t plan out our days. We just go on nature time, and explore whatever the park gives us when we get there.

Our family has now taken many fantastic Spring and Fall Break camping trips, at some wonderful Arkansas State Parks. Here are a few favorite excerpts from our journals:

• “We woke up to a chilly morning today at Lake Ouachita State Park, with birds singing and crows calling. A gentle fog hovered over the calm surface of the water, and we all enjoyed a slow morning as the sun rose. We made a Dutch oven breakfast casserole and it was delicious.”

• “At Lake Dardanelle State Park, we used driftwood and other natural materials found along the shoreline to make little boats. They actually floated! This was a fun, easy, free activity we all had fun working on these together.”

Emily sends her driftwood boat on its maiden voyage.

Courtney's boat was more of a cruise ship.

• “While Daddy was setting up the tent on our first night Mount Nebo State Park, Emily (age 4) was awed by the owl we were hearing in the distance and marveled at all the stars shining so bright above us.  It’s these moments that make all the preparation of camping worthwhile.”

• 

  Childhood is all about discovery.

  “The girls found an inchworm on the walk back to our camp at Petit Jean State Park. Emily really enjoyed letting it crawl all over her hands.  After I convinced her to let it go she talked about how she thought she could still see his little footprints on her hand.”

Kids love an adventure.

• “The whole family spent a great evening on a sunset kayak tour with the park interpreter [at Cane Creek State Park]. We saw a beaver, several beaver lodges, lots of woodpeckers and other birds, and tons of lilypads.  It was a fun trip and the interpreter was a great guide.”

• Today we decided to walk the short, easy ¼-mile Bear Cave Trail at Petit Jean State Park. There isn’t really a “cave” on it, but believe me, there is no disappointment about that, because the path winds you through a forest of humongous sandstone boulders. We all agreed there is a magical feeling there.

• 

  Instructions: Just add water!

  “The first thing the girls wanted to do when we arrived at Lake Ouachita State Park was sit in the lake in their clothes so of course, I let them. Emily’s laughing face in the picture shows just how much they enjoyed doing something silly and out of the ordinary!”

• “Our whole family spent the afternoon exploring nature at Petit Jean State Park today. We love looking up close at woodpecker marks in tree bark, bright colors of small wildflowers, amazing patterns in the rock formations, and of course, we are excited when a lizard darts across our path! Emily wanted to catch this one for a closer look, but she never was fast enough. There are so many little science and life lessons in these moments.”

Experiencing a day of discovery.

• “You can rub two small sandstone or shale rocks together with water to make nature paint! We used it to make designs on our bodies today. (It’s really just mud, so it washes off with water.) If you look carefully you can find resources to make white, gray, yellow, and red paint! The girls loved that it goes on wet as one color, and it dries another color! Here is Courtney’s “tattoo” of a kayaker and kayak.”

• “We did a little geocaching today at Cane Creek State Park! Our family is just getting into this popular hobby, but we love the thrill of a scavenger hunt that leads us to neat history and nature places we might otherwise not see. The girls love looking at the logbook to see who’s been there recently, and we like leaving our note for the next people.”
  

  Introducing the kids to a bigger world.

• “Today all four of us took a hike on the Bench Trail at Mount Nebo State Park. Not only did we enjoy the forest and little spring-fed waterfalls, but the views off the mountain into the Arkansas River valley were incredible. We took time to just sit and stare at Arkansas’s beauty.”

• Evenings together around the campfire, like the one we had tonight at Petit Jean State Park, are one our family’s favorite things about camping in Arkansas State Parks. We do different things to pass the time, including tending the fire, cooking over it, reading aloud, telling jokes, talking about the day’s adventures, and of course, roasting marshmallows and making s’mores!

I just made our reservations for this year at Daisy State Park on Lake Greeson, and we’re looking forward to sharing all these traditions again and making new ones to add to our list.

* * *

State park interpreters in over 25 locations have scheduled daily programs during Arkansas Spring Break 2010, and quite a few actually have programs scheduled throughout the month to also accommodate different spring break dates from neighboring states like Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Missouri.

Programs include guided nature hikes, kayak tours, arts and crafts, hands-on workshops, historic site tours, and much more. Programs are scheduled at different times throughout the day, with additional evening activities such as night hikes, campfires, and owl prowls. In addition, many historic state park sites offer daily tours. Most programs are free of charge. Those requiring fees include most lake cruises, kayak tours, and site tours. Fees are minimal in most cases.

Park Finder Map:

Every town in the Natural State has at least one state park within an hour’s drive! CLICK HERE to see a Park Finder map.

Online Calendar of Events:

You can also check out our online calendar of events to see what’s scheduled at your local park, or to help plan a day or overnight trip to a park further from home. CLICK HERE to find a program that fits your schedule. You can customize your search by date, park location, city, zip code, and keyword (such as “kayak,” “hike,” “archeology,” or “birding”).

Besides scheduled, interpreter-led programs the State Parks of Arkansas provide facilities and settings for plenty of things you can do on your own in the parks, including geocaching, hiking, mountain biking, watching wildlife, studying Arkansas history, exploring nature and history exhibits in our visitor centers, and more.

Additional resources:

Parents wanting additional resources for year-round outdoor activity ideas might check out the following Web sites:

• www.GreenHour.org
• www.NatureRocks.org

No matter what your family does this year during Spring Break, remember, your Arkansas State Parks are here for you. Make plans now to visit one soon.

School’s Out, State Parks Are In! Arkansas Spring Break 2010

Sarah Keating, Asst. Park Superintendent

– Sarah Keating has been stationed at Lake Dardanelle State Park since 2001. She is currently Assistant Park Superintendent, and preceded that by six years as a Park Interpreter there. Sarah has also worked at Crater of Diamonds, Withrow Springs, and Lake Fort Smith. Sarah holds a bachelors degree in park resource management from Kansas State University. She is also an NAI Certified Heritage Interpreter and Trainer. Each fall she serves as an adjunct professor of Interpretive Methods  and Interpretive Field Studies at Arkansas Tech University. Most importantly, she works hard to ensure that her family goes camping in Arkansas State Parks as often as possible!

Because words can’t describe…

Instead of a regular post today we decided to leave you with a lovely visit to The Lodge at Mount Magazine State Park.

The Lodge at Mount Magazine opened in the Spring of 2006 and is one of the great vacation attractions of Arkansas. All rooms and cabins have a view off the bluff-line overlooking the Petit Jean River Valley and Blue Mountain Lake. All cabins have a hot tub on the deck with the same view. Amenities include the Skycrest Restaurant, Conference center, free broadband internet access, indoor pool and fitness center, business center and gift shop.

Also in the park are miles of hiking trails including the Signal Hill Trail which takes you to the highest point in Arkansas. A state-of-the-art Visitor Center greats visitors with exhibits of the mountains’ natural and cultural history and wildlife viewing areas. The park is also known for its wonderful programs that immerse you into the flora and fauna of the mountain. A slow drive through the park should include the Cameron’s Bluff Drive which has several overlooks.

Besides the lodge and cabins the park has a beautiful modern campground. Reservations can be made online or by calling 1-479-963-8502 for the campground or 1-877-MM-Lodge for the lodge and cabins. We look forward to your next visit.

Parks—Places Where “Everlasting Moments” Are Born

If you asked me what I ate for dinner yesterday, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t remember.  Yet, I can recall in such detail—and with such clarity—encounters I’ve experienced in Arkansas’s state parks over the past 37 years since that winter day in 1973 when I, like so many of my colleagues here at Arkansas State Parks, choose this park system to be my life’s work, too.  Those myriad moments—personal, poignant and often profound encounters that I lived through—are always with me.  Some occurred in solitude.  Others were shared experiences with park visitors, or friends and family.  But these encounters when I connected with nature or history, or with another human being whose life was being enhanced by that time in that park, too, are etched in my mind, and in my heart, forever.  Like the parks themselves, these memories are something I can always reconnect to.  George B. Hartzog Jr, who served as director of the National Park Service in the 1960s and early 1970s, keenly called these heart-moving minutes in a park that stay with us forever “everlasting moments.”

I’m picturing some of those everlasting park moments right now that occurred in early September in 2002.  Back then during the final years of my beloved mother’s life, she lived near my two older sisters in northwest Arkansas.  I would often drive from Little Rock to spend a day or two with Mother on weekends.  While traveling back to Little Rock late that September afternoon after spending the day with her, I couldn’t shake this sense that I was supposed to take a detour off I-40 and go across Petit Jean Mountain.  As I approached the Russellville Hwy. 7 exit, I gave in to the mountain’s pull, took the detour and headed towards Petit Jean State Park.  I’m glad I did.

For over 75 years the overlook behind Mather Lodge at Petit Jean State Park has been a favorite place to watch the sunset.

I hoped to watch the sunset from behind Mather Lodge, the park’s 1930s-era CCC lodge there on the bluff overlooking rugged Cedar Creek Canyon, but I missed being at that vantage point by just minutes.  Instead, I watched the sunset through my rearview mirror as I drove along Ark. 154 from Centerville past Holla Bend.  The months of August and September are when sunsets viewed from the lodge are often their most dramatic, and it was a spectacular sunset, although not viewed from where I hoped to watch it.  I stopped briefly at the lodge, an Arkansas historic treasure where I worked in the mid-70s and which was the setting of so many cherished park memories.  Then, I headed through the park to Stout’s Point on the mountain’s east brow to enjoy the sweeping scenery from that overlook.  I walked around the overlook’s elevated walkway and then climbed up a large rock so I could sit and enjoy the view of the Arkansas River and valley below.  Twilight darkened to dusk.  As the minutes went by, the night grew darker.  Far down below in Morrilton, located there alongside a big curve in the river, the lights of the city were shining brightly.  As far as I could see, lights marked where other smaller communities were scattered through the Arkansas landscape.  Those lights were mirrored by stars shining in the clear sky above me.

Eventually, all the other sightseers left, but I was in no hurry to go.  That time there in that park was so peaceful, and so perfect.

Then I noticed a man with long dark hair walking along the opposite side of the walkway.  He didn’t see me.  The man stopped and looked to the east at the view across the Arkansas River.  He stood there perfectly still in that position for several minutes.  As I watched his dark silhouette against the darkening blue of the night sky, I saw him reach down and pull something out of a long slender bag.  He raised the long straight object to his face.  Suddenly, I felt panic wondering if he was about to take his own life and I would be the silent witness to his act.  Just as I was drawing my breath to call out and make my presence known, he began to softly play his American Indian flute.  I sat there spellbound listening as he played the Cherokee courting flute.  I’ve attended many a musical performance in my life.  None were more memorable than this.  I’ve sat in many a concert hall featuring acoustic ceiling panels and walls, but none were more beautiful, or offered any better acoustics that I can remember, than this park setting.  He continued to play for, I guessed, well over half an hour.  The only sounds accompanying his flute were crickets, cicadas and wind rustling leaves.

Only two people were experiencing this park experience—a Cherokee playing his love flute in thanks to Mother Earth and Father Sky and an unnoticed Arkansas State Parks staffer who took a detour off a busy highway.

As he played, I quietly, and reverently, took it all in—his music, the view from the mountain, the night sky.  I thought about the time I’d watched a sunrise from this same overlook almost three decades earlier with two park colleagues the day before I left Petit Jean to go work at another Arkansas state park.  I can still remember every moment, color and detail of that sunrise.  I knew I’d remember every detail of this starlit concert, too.

I finally made my presence known as he was heading towards his car, and we spent about an hour talking.  The story he shared with me was as moving as the earlier sounds from his flute.  He said that an elder Cherokee had dreamed about him and then sought him out to tell him to learn to play the flute.  It would be part of his destiny.  And so, this young Cherokee would drive from Russellville to Petit Jean Mountain in the evenings and play his flute from points north, south, east, and west there on the mountain in tribute to earth and sky.  Ironically, because of the lure of the mountain and my detour that late afternoon, I was destined, too, to be there and witness his flute playing at the park’s overlook on the mountain’s east brow.

Stout's Point on the East brow of Petit Jean Mountain is a wonderful place to enjoy scenic views of the Arkansas River.

Arkansas’s state parks are here to protect natural and cultural resources.  They’re here for outdoor recreation and to support tourism, too.  And the parks are here to connect us to those natural and historic resources, and to inspire those personal and profound “everlasting moments” that become memories we cherish a lifetime.  As George Hartzog said as he reflected on the first time he stood on the south rim of the Grand Canyon and looked at that magnificent view in front of him, “These are everlasting moments that stay with you and influence your life all your life.”

The next time your travels present the opportunity for a detour to an Arkansas state park, I hope you take it so you can experience some everlasting moments, too.

 

 

 

Joan Ellison, Public Information Officer

Joan Ellison is a 37-year veteran of the State Parks Division of the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.  She has served as the Division’s public information officer since 1987. Prior to that she held positions as administrative assistant to the state parks director, state field naturalist, park naturalist at Lake Catherine, and in lodge management at two state parks. A creative force in the Arkansas state park system’s advertising and promotion efforts in print, electronic and outdoor media, she has written and produced hundreds of Arkansas State Parks television and radio spots.  Her work is featured in state travel brochures, regional and national magazines, and the park system’s 12 Web sites. Ellison holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Park Administration from Arkansas Tech University. She has served in leadership and membership roles in a wide array of parks, recreation, environmental education, and government communications organizations including the Arkansas Information Coordinators Association, Arkansas Recreation and Parks Association, Arkansas Advisory Council on Environmental Education, the Southern Regional Environmental Education Council, Training Resources in Environmental Education, Project Learning Tree, Project Wild, Outdoor Biological Instructional Strategies, Arkansas Native Plant Society, and the Arkansas Herpetological Society.

 

The Other “Spring Migration”

Welcome to Lake Poinsett State Park.

This week as I was enjoying the sunshine on a fresh air break, I began hearing one of my favorite sounds: birds singing and chirping.  Not just any birds, but those amazing birds that are beginning to slowly make the journey northward on their spring migration.  However, that sound meant more to me than the opportunity to see some of the birds that I’ve missed over the winter months.  It also brought me the excitement of knowing that another migration that our park staff enjoys every spring is almost upon us: the migration of the “regular” campers.

For those of you who don’t know what I mean by “regular” campers, let me explain.  “Regulars” are those families that come back to our park every spring like clockwork.  They might come every weekend or stay with us for a few weeks at a time.

A state park is a great place to make new friends.

They are people that we have come to know like family.  We know their names and faces by heart; we know who makes the best pear preserves, homemade ice-cream, and fried fish. We look forward to their arrival and we enjoy catching up on all that we have missed. We hear about everything from the joys of retirement to the hardships of aging. For me it is an absolute pleasure to stop and talk awhile as I make my evening rounds; or to just drive through the campground and be greeted with warm smiles and friendly waves of the hand.

Spring is the perfect time to get out to a campground.

Our “regulars” are a group of families who are indispensable to our park and the state park system in general. They are a group of campers who have an appreciation for all the work that goes into making the park run smoothly. They are a great sounding board when asking about changes in the park. They will gladly tell you their honest opinion both good and bad. That is just another endearing trait that I admire in our “regulars”.  They also provide some of the best advertising a person could ask for. They are constantly recruiting kids and grand kids to the park, and they make other campers who are just passing through feel right at home.  I love watching our “regulars” approach a family who has just pulled into a campsite for the night and ask them if they need help setting up or if they would like to join them for dinner.  They make new friends everyday and sometimes become “camping buddies” for life.

“Regulars” are also some of the best volunteers for programs and special events.  They are the people that step up to help us out with things like taking pictures during events, greeting people as they come up to programs, helping kids learn how to fish, and picking up litter along our one mile stretch of adopted highway.

One of the great things about staying in an Arkansas State Park is that there is so much to do!

For those of you out there reading this blog who are “regulars”, let me take a moment to thank you for being one of the reasons I come to work every day.  You make the hard and hectic days bearable and the fun days even more exciting.  For those of you who aren’t sure if you fall into the “regular” category yet, I challenge you to get to know your favorite park a little more this year.  Get to know the staff, see the park in different seasons, and take the opportunity to experience some of the special events your park has to offer.

If you don’t have a favorite park yet, let me invite you to my park, Lake Poinsett State Park.    We love our regulars and we are always excited to see them “migrate” back to our park year after year!

Kathrine Evans, Asst. Park Superintendent

Katherine Evans is the Assistant Superintendent at Lake Poinsett State Park.  Educated at the University of Michigan, she holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Studies and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology.  She began her career with Arkansas State Parks at Village Creek State Park in 2008 as a Seasonal Interpreter.  She became the Assistant Superintendent at Lake Poinsett State Park in January of 2009.  She is a member of the National Association for Interpretation and a Certified Interpretive Guide.

Josh Epperson, Park Superintendent

Josh Epperson has been the Superintendent at Lake Poinsett State Park since November 2008.  He started as a Seasonal Interpreter at Village Creek State Park in March 2002 and has since worked at various other parks in Eastern Arkansas.  He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Wildlife Ecology and Management from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.  A native of Arkansas, Josh grew up camping in Arkansas State Parks and is now living a dream of working in the park system.

Musings of a Westerner on the Natural State

I moved to Arkansas in March last year to take the position of park interpreter at the Crater of Diamonds State Park.  Until that time I had spent most of the previous twenty years living in the Pacific Northwest, in particular Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon.  In my life I have moved around quite a bit, living in 13 states if I include Arkansas.  Moving to different parts of the country is a bit like visiting a foreign country, even though we supposedly all speak the same language and have the same general culture.  So, I have had fun over of the last year getting to know Arkansas’ countryside and cultural idiosyncrasies.

The mountains of Arkansas are an unexpected pleasure of our out-of-state visitors.

I will admit that before moving to Arkansas I knew very little about the Natural State.  I grew up in central Illinois and my family travelled fairly widely.  However, the only family visit to Arkansas was a spring break spent in Hot Springs, and those memories were very faint.  Somehow, Arkansas never came up when people talked about beautiful places to visit.  This surprises me now, because Arkansas really is one of the most beautiful places that I have lived.  It doesn’t have the dramatic beauty of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and the Big Sky Country of Montana and Idaho.  It isn’t as lush as the Pacific coasts of Oregon and Washington.  And it doesn’t have the dramatic canyons of Arizona and Utah.  Instead, it has a gentle and comfortable kind of beauty with panoramas of blue hills seen from its high points, like Mt. Magazine and Queen Wilhelmina State Parks.

Beautiful hardwood and pine forests make for great hiking throughout "The Natural State."

I particularly love the open woodlands with their mix of hardwoods and pines.  In the summer they embrace like a lovely green room, and in the winter, after the leaves fall, the horizon returns with red sunrises and sunsets glimpsed through the black trunks of trees. In the spring the woods are full of white and rose clouds from the blooming dogwoods and redbuds.  Each season seems to bring some new beauty to be admired.

One of the fun things about living in different places is appreciating the little cultural differences.  Probably the local people would be surprised at the things that I find unusual.  For example, I have never lived anywhere that campers routinely pack fans and air conditioners in addition to their tents and outdoor stoves.  But, having now lived through the warm and humid summer nights, I understand why fans are standard camping equipment items.  Also, I was driving home late one evening last summer and noticed that my car windows were fogging up.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the condensation was on the outside of my car windows, and even though it wasn’t raining I had to run the wipers to clear my windows.

As I have traveled around I have also noticed that Arkansans seem to love their lawns. They have the biggest expanses of beautiful green grass carpets of anywhere I have lived.  In the West most lawns are only green if they are watered regularly, so with water in short supply, the lawns are usually small.  When I moved to Portland, OR, a place that most people in the rest of the country think of as the epitome of greenness, I was amazed when all the lawns were left to turn brown.  Perennial water shortages in the late summer, with the resulting high water bills to water their lawns, mean that most lawns are left to dry up.  But, in Arkansas, with higher rainfalls and lots of riding lawn mowers, the lawns expand to cover acres, dotted with beautiful pine trees.

Diamonds, Mountains and Wetlands add to the wonderful diversity of Arkansas.

Finally, even some things that are practical and obvious to the resident can catch the eye of the newcomer.  One of my favorites is the open-sided steel buildings I see in the local cemeteries.  It is an obvious thing to provide permanent shade for graveside services and extremely practical given the summer temperatures and humidity here, but I just never have seen it in other states.  I also love the small cemeteries that I encounter as I come around curves on the winding Arkansan byways, some family cemeteries but most left from an era when the small towns were close together.

I am looking forward to continuing my exploration of Arkansas.  I have not yet visited the Ozarks or the Mississippi Delta.  When I think of the term “Natural State”, it is usually defined as “unspoiled”.  However, I have come to a different view—to me the Natural State is beautiful because it is unembellished and unpretentious, so that its native beauty is completely visible.

Margi Jenks, Park Interpreter

Margi Jenks is a recent convert to working as a park interpreter.  For twenty years she worked as a geologist, making new geologic maps of parts of Oregon, Idaho, and Washington State. Her research interests were volcanoes and their interactions with ancient large lakes.  So, working at the Crater of Diamonds State Park is a natural fit, with its 106 million-year-old volcanic crater containing those fascinating diamonds.

Going Prehistoric!

Big Piles of Dirt

Mound A is the tallest mound in Arkansas at approximately 49 ½ ft tall. That’s almost the size of a 5 story building. Mound B is 39 ½ ft tall and mound c is 10-12 ft. tall. It has been estimated that it would take approximately 753,280 baskets full of dirt to make mound A.

An almost five story tall prehistoric mound sits before me. As I watch the sunset over the ceremonial grounds I stare in awe over the ingenuity of the people that once lived here.  Contemplating this huge mound, I start thinking about how visitors describe the mounds at first sight. “Those are some big piles of dirt.” Calling them big piles of dirt is an oversimplification.

Along with chard sticks baskets were used as a prehistoric mound building tool.

First impressions we have about prehistoric American Indians is that they are primitive, simple really. Even in commercials you hear “So easy a caveman can do it.” This implies that a person who lived long ago could only do the simplest of things. I thought back on what “simple” things the people of prehistoric times would have done. Building a mound requires dirt to be built up in a pile. That is an easy concept. Making it flat or round on top, well that’s simple too. Sure the people long ago could do the simplest things. Instead of seeing these people as simple here at Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park you have to take a big step back and arrange the whole picture. The Plum Bayou People, over 900 years ago, were able to construct monumental and lasting earthworks that still stand today.

Solstices and Equinoxes

The Great Pyramids in Egypt, Stonehenge in England, Mayan Pyramids in Mexico…these are the outstanding places you think of when you hear solstice or equinox. The ancient peoples around the world built these amazing and mysterious wonders. Hundreds of visitors flock to these destinations every year to admire a piece of prehistory.

America is too young to have such great wonders of the world. Or is it? These mounds at Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park tell us the same thing.  They aren’t in shapes of little heads or tables but they tell the same stories. The prehistoric American Indians that lived here not only built these huge mounds, but they also put them in certain spots to create a way to tell about the solstices and Equinoxes. Our own trailblazers have been in your back yard this whole time.

Visitors enjoying the sunset behind Mound A to mark the Fall Equinox.

Come out and see this for yourself. The park lets people come experience these actual events and see our own piece of prehistory.

After studying the mounds I concluded that a truer statement should be “So easy a modern man can do it.” Prehistoric American Indians simply did do it. Easy is a huge understatement. It would truly be easy for the modern man but let’s see modern man build these mounds the way they are without books, internet, and engineering tools…and have them last over 900 years!

Amy Griffin, Park Interpreter

Amy holds a bachelors degree in Parks and Recreation from Arkansas Tech University. Her career in Arkansas state parks started as a seasonal interpreterin 2006 at DeGray Lake State Park. She is currently a park interpreter at Toltec Mounds Archeological Park and has worked there since 2007. She is also a member of the National Association of Interpreters and a Certified Interpretive Guide.

The Park that was a Farm

Entering Crowley’s Ridge State Park, the first things you notice are the trees.  As you wander through the park you will see a wide variety of trees, shrubs, vines, and flowering plants.  Looking at all of the greenery it might be hard to picture the land as a farm, but that is exactly what it was before a determined group of people decided that it needed to become a park.

Crowley’s Grave – this monument was built in the Shiloh Cemetery to honor Benjamin Crowley, the first prominent settler on the ridge and the man for whom Crowley’s Ridge was named.

In the early 1800’s a man named Benjamin Crowley decided to settle in Northeast Arkansas.  He had originally been given a piece of land in Missouri as partial payment for his service in the War of 1812.  Unfortunately, when he arrived to settle his land he discovered that it had been covered with water due to the massive earthquakes that shook the area in 1811 and 1812, so he decided to keep searching for a good spot to set up his homestead.  Although he traveled through Davidsonville and stayed there for a little while he eventually made his way to what would later become a little town called Walcott and set up his homestead there.  He liked it so much that he encouraged his family and friends to move to the area.  On his land the first church service for the area was held, the first court session for Greene County was held, and one of the first cemeteries was established.

Mrs. Belle Hodges Wall’s perseverance played a large part in the creation of Crowley’s Ridge State Park.

As time went on most of the land was used for farmland until a small group of citizens decided that the area needed to be set aside due to its historical significance.  Led by a woman named Belle Hodges Wall, the group formed the Greene County Historical Society and began working to raise money to purchase land that could then be set aside as a park.  The first time they contacted the state government about including their land in the brand new state park system they were informed that the amount of land was not enough to declare it a state park and that the farm land and swamp areas would make a poor park.  Rather than giving up Mrs. Wall organized a letter writing campaign and hired W.R. Heagler to design a plan that would turn the farm into a park.  Eventually Mrs. Wall was successful and in 1933 the land was accepted as a state park.  W.R. Heagler was chosen as the first superintendent and oversaw the construction of the park facilities.

The beginnings of the park coincided with the beginnings of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), one of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal projects.  Five CCC companies over the course of five years, from 1933 to 1938, worked to transform the land into a place that the community would be proud to claim as their local state park.  They built facilities, put in culverts, cleared trails, and planted more than ten thousand trees and more than fifty thousand shrubs and vines.  Although, the trees create a wonderful view, some might argue that

The first company of Civilian Conservation Corps workers lived in tents while working on the park. This picture shows the barren conditions that the area was in before the CCC planted numerous trees, vines, and shrubs.

planting the shrubs and vines was actually more important.  The soil on Crowley’s Ridge is highly erodible and after being farmed for so long one of the big concerns was the soil simply blowing away.  The root systems of the shrubs and vines spread quickly, helping to hold the soil in place.

Today our visitors enjoy walks on our hiking trails that take them through the woods and past a wide variety of plants species.  Many species of wildlife have moved in and set up homes, including whitetail deer, turkey, red fox, and pileated woodpeckers.  Through the perseverance of a community and the hard work of a group of young men the farm has become a park that is a treasured part of the northeast Arkansas community and thanks to the Arkansas State Parks system and the citizens of Arkansas it will remain that way for many years to come.

The Wishing Well Flume near Lake Ponder is surrounded by greenery.

Heather Runyan, Park Interpreter

Heather Runyan graduated from Henderson State University with a bachelor’s degree in Recreation and Park Administration and after college served two terms as an AmeriCorps member.   She began working for Arkansas State Parks in 2006 as the Park Interpreter at Crowley’s Ridge State Park.   Heather is a member of the National Association for Interpretation and a Certified Interpretive Guide.

Petit Jean State Park: A Place Where You Can Go Home Again

“Experiencing the changes in life over the years has meant more to me than simple aging.  It has meant watching the landscape and the world become more tame, drab, and developed.  Human life and wildlife are both losing their world.”   – Barbara Kerr

I have spent more than a few hours in January reviewing Ken Burns’ recent documentary The National Parks: America’s Best Idea and have learned a great deal from it, both factually and emotionally.  The documentary has helped me to piece together some scattered thoughts.

A map was drawn up by the National Park Service of Petit Jean.

I found it interesting, even before I ever served as a park interpreter at Petit Jean, that this state park has ties, and some similarities, to national parks: We have a lodge named for the first Park Service Director, Stephen Mather, who visited here in the 1920s to help strengthen a new Conference of State Parks. Our country doctor/park founder, T.W. Hardison, originally had the national park idea in mind when he first met with Mather.  They would meet again, and Hardison would come to know Mather as a friend and fellow conservationist.  Petit Jean State Park has a set of archived park plans (on display at the visitor center) drawn up by the National Park Service during the time of the Civilian Conservation Corps – another tie.  The idea of setting this beautiful, rugged area aside to be conserved for future generations parallels the notion that began the national parks.  It follows the same pattern.  As our Executive Director of Arkansas Parks and Tourism, Richard Davies, noted in a talk back in December, “Our state parks are the ‘child’ of national parks.”  It’s a pretty accurate metaphor.

Though I believed I knew the answer, I have asked myself on several occasions recently, “Why do I like parks so much?”  And the more I think about it, the deeper the answers run.  There are volumes.

One reason might be summed up by the title of a Thomas Wolfe novel, You Can’t Go Home Again.  Wolfe’s title refers to change.  In time, change may alter any place – even home, or maybe especially home – to a point that it is no longer the same place.  It’s not home as you knew it anymore.  You can’t go there anymore.  The sentence/title strikes a chord with me because it is so true.  But parks are, by nature, change-resistant.  The idea is to let them remain “home” to the people who visit them generation after generation.  A person who made the hike to Cedar Falls fifty years ago can return today, make the hike, and little has changed.  Somewhere, deep down, that must be a source of inspiration and perhaps a source of great relief as well.

Hiking the trails at Petit Jean State Park is timeless.

When I was eight years old, a clever second-grader, I made one of my first organized hikes – a very special one.  It was not in a park, but it was in a place very much like a park – a natural area with an expansive reach and an interesting history.  Four generations of my family had just come back from a service at a small country church.  My grandmother provided music at the church’s piano.  There were my younger sister and myself, our parents, my father’s parents, and my father’s mother’s parents.  From my great-grandparents’ old country house, we all made an afternoon walk up our home stream, the North Fork of Ozan Creek.  This old creek sliced through the Gulf Coastal Plain of southwest Arkansas, revealing colorful rounded stones washed away from conglomerate outcrops and mounds of slate-blue clay the local people called “Indian soap.”  The creek’s water was clear and churned down riffles into long pools that again became lively riffles.  Caddo burial mounds dotted the countryside along the creek, and artifacts from that culture turned up everywhere.

We hiked for several miles that afternoon, on a pretty well-established trail, and for the first time I got to see places that would become an embedded part of my early life.  There was one spring, in particular, that flowed down a clay embankment, leaving multi-hued mineral patterns on a cusp that faced a small pool which emptied into the creek.  My buddies and I would later dub it “Buffalo Spring” because of its brown colors.  The trail builders, whoever they may have been, created bench paths that cut midway along the sides of the bluffs some thirty feet up over the creek.  Hardwood and pine canopied the creek corridor, and down along the creek bed were springs and more springs, feeder streams, canebrakes, and openings into fields.  Our final destination that day was a waterfall, about five feet high and twenty feet across, with a darn good swimming hole washed out beneath it.  And I found my eight-year-old self in love with a place.

Late that afternoon, I settled in warm by the fireplace at my great-grandparents’ house, thinking about it all.  I hoped that we would all do the hike again next week.  But it didn’t happen.  Then I wished that we would do the hike together again later on.  But time passed, and changes came.  My great-grandparents and grandparents grew older, my parents grew busier, and that group of eight would never make the hike to the waterfall again.  For the four generations, it turned out to be a one-time experience.  Later in my childhood, though, I became as intimately familiar with the Ozan and its surroundings as I was with each of those members of my own family.  Three other boy companions lived just down the road.  We kept the Ozan Creek company for years and, looking back, were pretty good caretakers.

We witnessed the dynamics of the stream, knew the scents and sounds and responses to seasons.  Spring rains brought the big, swift, brown water out of the banks.  When the creek settled down, expansive new rock bars appeared, newly washed out swimming holes were discovered, while other pools were filled in with stone and gravel.  One swimming hole, the flood-scoured floor newly-cleared to reveal a large deposit of blue clay, became known to local people as the “Blue Hole” or “Clay Bottom.”  I was baptized in that swimming hole one summer Sunday afternoon.  Afterwards, my buddies threw me off the diving bank and “re-baptized” me.  Summer droughts brought shallow pools laced with algae; riffles turned to dry rock.  Long-ear sunfish made nests in shallows and dutifully defended them.  Small chain pickerel darted beneath grassy banks.  There were cottonmouths all along the creek, a species that I would later learn defines a healthy watershed – but if you want to stay healthy, don’t let them get their fangs into you.

As we grew older, our territory expanded.  A few miles downstream, the Ozan ran into a wetland.  There was a beaver dam the length of a football field, and we learned of old natural caves that had been slowly eroded into the sandstone hills not far from the beaver pond.  Waterfowl flew in by hundreds.  One year, on my best friend’s birthday, we were set free to hike across the bottoms.  His mother picked us up at a pre-determined spot late that afternoon.  It was an unforgettable day.

By the time I was a senior in high school, “progress” was afoot, and there were plans for the North Fork of Ozan Creek.  Change was on its way.  The USDA Soil Conservation Service was in the final stages of building “watershed dams” on many of the streams that flowed into the rich farmland miles downstream – this theoretically to control flooding and to save crops.  I vividly remember hiking upstream one spring day and being wide-eyed to find dozers and earth movers beginning the process of building a huge earthen dam across the Ozan – a quarter-mile of dirt, dust and noise.  Once the dam was completed, the entirety of water in the creek was funneled down a chamber and fed through a pipe about three and one-half feet in diameter.  Only the heated top-water of the new reservoir made it to the other side of the dam.  On a summer day, the water that fed from the dam into the old creek bed was as warm as bathwater to the touch.  And, as several years passed, the living, changing creek that I had known for so long all but vanished.  Only a withered remnant remained, slowly filling with soil and fallen trees.  The Ozan had become a mere, winding overgrown ditch.

A wealthy rancher from the west bought the wetland area.  Before long there were more dozers and chainsaws busy clearing and draining the bottomland.  A new channel was cut for the stream to run through, a straight drainage ditch.  Being paranoid that someone would become injured or trapped in one of the old sandstone caverns, the landowner even had the bull dozers cave in and seal off the entrances.  In time, and to the amazement of some of the local residents, the wetland became a cow pasture.

Later still, when I was in my mid-twenties, I made a scouting walk up the Ozan.  I had a new son and had it in mind to make some of my childhood treks with him once he became old enough.  By then, a new housing development was beginning to spring up in the fields above the bluffs.  There were brand new, large homes being built for the upwardly mobile of the nearest town.  Once I came upon Buffalo Spring, I was dismayed to find, in the pool beneath the cusp, a large wooden cable spool, dumped along with lesser bits and pieces of leftover construction material.  Developers and new residents were using the creek as a garbage dump.  Further on, I found barbed wire strung all the way to the creek banks.  The old walking trail was gone.  The bench paths along the bluffs were eroded away.  As more time went by, the wealthy occupants of the Ozan estates began to use the creek for riding popular, new all-terrain-vehicles, scarring the creek bed and its banks with deep, muddy ruts as well as leaving litter.  It was a whole new change and not necessarily for the better.

Scenarios similar to mine have happened in many places during the past several decades.  I hear it from like-minded people all over the world: “I once knew this lovely place.  It’s changed now.”

Why do I like parks so much?  One reason is I can’t go home again.  Only in distant memory can I walk along the path that my family’s four generations took one Sunday afternoon long ago.  As I grow older, I look on and see, in real terms, what happens if an inspiring, natural place is not protected in some way.  There is certainty that it will be degraded or vanish entirely, especially with new populations, changing values, and a drive, by some, to turn natural resources into more wealth.

One of the most comforting thoughts that I can imagine is that when my granddaughter is grown and tall, and a force to be reckoned with, that there will still be a Boy Scout Trail at Petit Jean State Park.  I hope that she will be out on it with a daypack strapped to her back, testing strong legs against stone, sunrays still heating up the walls of the ancient slot canyons in the Seven Hollows.  And I hope I’m there, trying to keep up.  Parks such as Petit Jean, for us and even for those who exist out in the distant future, give special places and the people who know them a chance to endure.

“The legacy of Arkansas State Parks is to preserve our state’s diverse beauty and history, so that all Arkansans and visitors may find emotional and intellectual connections to their heritage.”

BT Jones, Park Interpreter

BT Jones is a park interpreter at Petit Jean State Park and has worked there since 2005.  He holds a master’s degree in education from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.  BT is a member of the National Association for Interpretation (NAI) and holds a Certified Interpretive Guide credential.  He is also a Leave No Trace (LNT) master educator and works as an advocate for Arkansas wilderness.  BT’s pasttimes are nature and wildlife photography, hiking and backpacking, and helping to preserve Arkansas’s wilderness and natural areas.  He most enjoys hiking with park visitors and presenting programs on Petit Jean’s natural and historical features.

It’s About the People

The elderly visitor stood at the first marker on the Knapp Trail, gazing out across the plaza area, a wide expanse of open grass. The wind carried the scent of many wildflowers straight toward his uplifted face.  He had rather long, dark hair shot through with streaks of gray. It was stirring in the breeze. His distinct facial features quietly spoke of his Native American heritage.  He was leaning on a walking staff. A feather hanging on a leather thong at the top of the staff danced in the breeze. A small, very old and weathered-looking, brown leather medicine bag hung around his neck.   His dark brown eyes focused on Mound A, the tallest Indian mound in Arkansas.  As an interpreter at Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park, I usually stop and speak with visitors, but something told me I should leave this gentleman undisturbed for a while. It was easy to tell by the expression on his weathered face that he was deep in contemplation.  I walked past him and continued out to check on some unusual wildflowers I had seen blooming near the small lake that people from Scott, Arkansas know as Mound Pond.

Visitors enjoy the diverse eco-system of Mound Lake.

I stayed a while on the boardwalk looking across the water. What a beautiful, breezy spring day! I turned and looked at the huge mound on the edge of the water. I imagined people, long ago, trudging up the side of that structure carrying basket loads of dirt, each one adding to the now silent testimony of the immense pile of soil that stood before me. 

The great earthen monument sang its silent song to me again. I could visualize Indian children playing happily here at its foot. It was easy to hear them laughing as they picked flowers, fished or caught frogs. 

My mind drifted forward in time to a fun morning I’d enjoyed with a group from the School for the Deaf that visited Toltec Mounds. I recalled their delight at discovering the green tree frogs on the boardwalk. How timeless this place is!  It has always meant something to someone.

I love interacting with our visitors and bringing the site and the people that built this place alive for them. People come here for different reasons. Sometimes the signs on the Interstate bring them in. It is simple curiosity. They are on vacation, touring, looking for something interesting to see and do. 

Some, like the Batun family who are of Mayan heritage, are attracted by the name Toltec. Senor Batun is working on his master’s degree in anthropology at Florida State University.  He and his family were on their way out west to see the Grand Canyon, when they noticed the signs and took a detour to see Toltec Mounds.  Some folks are interested in the archeology here.  They may come to volunteer on Arkansas Archeological Society lab days this summer.  Many come to learn about ancient life by participating in workshops or summer camps.  Boy Scouts, with the aid of the Quapaw Council, may come to work on their Native American Heritage badges. 

For some, like the man at the first trail marker, it is a spiritual thing. Often people come purposefully seeking that spiritual connection.  Others make connections at Toltec Mounds that they did not expect.  This place has that effect on folks.  They may come here saying, “So what?”  Yet, they go away saying “Wow!  I had no idea what was here.  This is amazing!”

A National Historic Landmark, the Toltec Mounds site comprises one of the largest and most impressive archeological sites in the Lower Mississippi River Valley.

As I left the boardwalk and rounded the base of Mound A to head back to the visitor center I noticed something.  The man at the first marker was still standing in the same spot I’d seen him about twenty minutes ago.  His hair was still lifting and dancing on the breeze.  I went near him again, and could see that his eyes were closed now.  A single tear sparkled in the sun on his left cheek. 

As I approached, he opened his eyes and our gazes locked.  He seemed a bit embarrassed at first and hurriedly wiped the tear away.  I just smiled knowingly and nodded.  He smiled back and said, “I can hear them…I can hear the drums.”  Now, many folks might think his remark a bit odd.  Not this interpreter.  I smiled and replied, “Me too!”   That was all we said to each other. It was all that was needed.

 

Rhonda Clay, Seasonal Park Interpreter

Rhonda Clay is a seasonal interpreter at Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park.  Educated at Louisiana Tech University, Rhonda has a Bachelor of Arts degree with emphasis on Wildlife Management and Public Relations.  She also holds associate degrees in Forestry Wildlife and Wildlife Conservation Biology.  Prior to this, she worked for the Caddo Parish Department of Parks in Louisiana as a park naturalist, and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a Refuge Operations Specialist, Environmental Educator, and Native American liaison to the Caddo Indian Nation. She is a Certified Interpretive Guide and active member of the National Association for Interpretation. 

The Rich Musical History in the Arkansas Delta

Kids get hands on history lessons at Parkin Archeological State Park.

In honor of Black History Month, I decided to go a different way with this week’s blog. Here in Arkansas we have so much to celebrate, yet so few of us know about our rich, colorful history.  This has bothered me for years. Some time ago I asked my grandmother why I had to search so hard to find Arkansas history- why we didn’t have all the historical markers and buildings that other states around us had.  She had one simple reply, “Honey, we come from poor stock.”

This is definitely true.  Though we have some of the most scenic waterways, mountains, hills and hollers, the best farmland, the coolest attitudes, and wouldn’t think twice about helping out our neighbors, for some reason, many thought that the very spirit that built Arkansas was something to be ashamed of.  That humble beginnings in log cabins, clearing land, working hard and raising children was simply something that no one would care about.

The Birthplace of Arkansas Delta Blues

Sadly, a lot of Arkansas history has gotten buried because of that very reason.  Perhaps the best untold story Arkansas has is its ownership of the only pure American form of music.  This is the story of creation.  This is the story of the Arkansas Delta Blues.

Scorching sun, biblical floods, despair, yet faith- the Arkansas Delta was built on extremes. Few lived in the Arkansas Delta before the Civil War.  Some of America’s most fertile soil, left by centuries of the Mississippi’s mighty floods, lay hidden beneath a dense blanket of forest and swamp- a wilderness ruled by bear and panther.  After the war, the Delta became a magnet for former slaves and others down on their luck, looking for a place where through hard work they could fulfill their dreams.

Getting one’s own land took time, dedication, and savings.  In the meantime, most came to work for others, large landowners who would take on sharecroppers.  Sharecroppers went to work with the desire to work a few years and save up enough money to get out.

The restored 1910 Northern Ohio School House interprets the life of timber workers children.

At that time, people said their days lasted “from can to can’t.”  That meant that they worked as long as there was enough daylight to see what they were doing. Though they came into sharecropping full of hope, many begin to see that instead sharecropping was like plowing quicksand. Each spring, landowners charged tenants for animals, seed, room, board, supplies, and equipment.  Come fall, high interest rates kept many farmers deeper in debt than they were the year before.

Though times were tough, spirits remained high.  Strong communities like SawDust Hill in Parkin sprang up and offered each other support. African-American churches, river baptisms, and box lunch socials became the center of the Delta folks’ lives. Places like the Northern Ohio School (now a part of Parkin Archeological State Park) offered students and parents hope that one day, their family could break the cycle of sharecropping. But life here in the Delta wasn’t all work and no play, and everyone wanted to get out a little on Saturday nights.

Musicians like Elvis, B.B. King, Carl Perkins and Howlin' Wolf spent their early years playing in places like Parkin, Arkansas.

The Beatles, U2, The Rolling Stones were all influenced by the music of the Delta

Beale Street in Parkin was the place to be.  With acts like Elvis, B.B. King, Carl Perkins, Howlin’ Wolf, Sunny Boy Williamson, and many more, where else would you want to be? Here in our fields, on our street corners, and in our juke joints on Saturday nights, African-Americans invented a new kind of music. They called it the Blues.  Juke joints sprang up all over the Delta, and some of the most famous were right around Parkin- West Memphis and Helena also had many famous acts come and play, but perhaps the most famous little juke joint around was the on the Parkin side of Twist, Arkansas.

This particular juke joint in Twist was rural, fun, spirited, and definitely unruly.  On one infamous winter night in 1949, a young B.B King was slated to be the entertainment, but he would soon be upstaged by another kind of show.  As local lore has it, punches began to fly between two men fighting over a woman named Lucille.  After the punches, came the chairs, and after the chairs, well, a kerosene lamp was knocked over and set the whole place ablaze.  Everyone, including B.B., quickly fled outside to safety.  It was about this time though, that B.B. realized in all the commotion he left his guitar onstage.  He rushed back into the burning building to retrieve his guitar, and luckily he made it out with only some minor burns.  He named his guitar “Lucille” that night to remind himself how much trouble a little lady can get you into.

The Blues didn’t just stay here in the Arkansas Delta- they immediately radiated out, all over the South, revolutionizing popular music and becoming America’s only true music form.  Though Blues joints can be found all over the U.S. and even overseas, some of the purest forms can only be found here in Arkansas.

Take an Arkansas Delta Blues retreat weekend- head over to Parkin Archeological State Park and visit the historic Northern Ohio School.  While you get to see one of the last remaining African-American one-room schoolhouses in eastern Arkansas, Park Interpreters can help your kids write their very own 12 bar blues song. Swing over to the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, and enjoy great exhibits on blues superstars, and don’t forget to be on the longest running blues radio show in America- aired live from the museum studio.  Drive down to Lakeport Plantation, the only remaining Arkansas plantation home on the Mississippi River, and if you’re lucky, Lake Chicot State Park will be holding Gospel Fest while you’re down there. And last but not least, don’t forget to swing out to Twist, and have your picture taken in front of the sign marking the place where Lucille got her name.

Experience Arkansas history dating back to 1000 A.D. and right up into the 1950's at Parkin Archeological State Park.

Welcome to my Arkansas- the Arkansas Delta, home of the Blues.  If you’re in the neighborhood, come on by.

 

Mary Anne Parker, Park Interpreter & Friend

~Mary Anne Parker has been with Arkansas State Parks since 2005, and as Interpreter at Parkin Archeological State Park since 2006.  Mary Anne’s primary focus at Parkin has been on the African-American Experience in the Delta, and she is extremely proud of the growth in community support the park has experienced with the renovation and opening of the Northern Ohio School in 2006. Her other interests and activities include running the Parker Homestead, which she owns and operates with her husband and his parents, and writing grants to further educational opportunities for students attending Arkansas Delta public schools.