. . . . test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test est it test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test . >> the work that i have done in the national park service is tremendous. it spans an entire career of the most mink work that i think i have ever done, is to sit and listen to the people to whom this continent belongs. when i listen and hear the pain of the taking of land, taking of quu culture, taking of language, i begin to think about what that means for me. i have a dear friend. her name is faith spottedeagle. she does tremendous work around generational trauma and healing in indian country. what she tells me is that healing will take place when we come together as a nation. healing of our indigenous people will be able to happen when we begin to set aside the denial and the same that serves as barriers between us and our native nations. i'm humbled to sit here today. there are plenty of other people that certainly could be here to talk through indigenous eyes. i only share with you what i have experienced myself. i ask you to also think buabout your experience with our native nations. if you don't have experience with our native nations, i encourage you to reach beyond your comfort zone and think about what it might have been to have a great loss in your life and what it would take for you to come back to a place of balance and to show a film to you produced by style-horse collective by a group of young people from the tribe balance youth programs. in connection to the unity, our conference of the northwest. it points us to a deeper level of understanding of why our tribal nations might be facing what they are. we might be able to come back to a place where our nations are healthy and sharing their indigenous knowledge with us, so we would understand the place of our american heritage as the national park service turns 100 years old today. i encourage all of us as citizens of this nation and citizens of this world to reflect back on the indigenous people and their perspectives of land. as you watch this film, think about your own self and your own family and your own community. have you ever had a loss or conflict that led you to a place of self-destruction, depression or great sadness. then, also, think about what helped you return to that place of healthy balance. there are always people losing their lives when there is sadness. we all have come back to a place of healthy balance. national parks may be the places for us to think about for our native people as they go home to the an ses industrial lands, as they walk in the moccasin tracks of those that came before them. the national parks have a role in helping to heal a nation, our first nations. thank you. >> one morning, i woke up. i heard my brother crying. he was screaming so loud you would have thought someone was dying. mom, dad, he screamed. there was no use trying. they weren't around. i went outside and saw he had had a pretty bad crash. his bike was in the ditch. his arm, a bloody gash. he looked so pitiful just sitting there in the dirt amongst the trash crying, i want mom and dad. i picked him up and started running towards my uncles up the way. it started raining and got real dark. you could barely tell it was day. my brother cried and asked, sister, where is mom? i didn't know what to say, when the truth is, i don't know. my uncle saw is coming, he ran into the yard. he took my brother from me and i held him in his arms. when he saw my face, i could tell, i could tell he was alarmed. he said, what happened, you fall too? uncle, i'm so tired. so tired of wondering why, why do they drink? why do they do drugs? why do they leave us? why? he said, sister, it's hard to explain. i said, uncle, try. then, he told the story. >> once this land was teepees as far as you can see. the water was clean, the land pristine. we were where we were meant to be. then, strangers came across the sea and brought with them their disease. our people cried and prayed and sang but it brought them to their knees. ♪ we will rise up from darkness ♪ ♪ we will overcome the pain warrior spirits live within us ♪ we shall remain >> imagine that your family and most of all your tribe, what if most everyone you love suddenly got sick and died and before you even had a chance to bury them and mourn, the strangers came and took away the land where you were born and you wondered if your parents even cared as they stole you and your brother away or if they had been so beaten down, they had nothing left to say. at school, they cut your hair and beat you if you spoke. the language that our creative gave our people when earth awoke. ♪ we will rise up from the darkness ♪ ♪ we will overcome the pain ♪ warrior spirits live within us ♪ ♪ we shall remain >> sister, i'm not trying to tell you that your mom and dad are okay or that they are not responsible for the choices that they have made. you see this bloody wound on your little brother's arm. if we don't clean it, it won't heal and it will do all kinds of harm. those deep wounds of our ancestors still bleed within our hearts when we remember all they have done. that's where the healing starts. so every morning when you wake, you pray this prayer out loud, creator, help me live in a way that would make my ancestors proud. don't you forget this. you can be anything you want to be. just work hard. never give up. perseverance is the key. strength, dignity, honor, that's all in your family tree. hold your head up high and know that. ♪ we shall remain ♪ we will rise up from the darkness ♪ >> creator, help me live in a way na will make my ancestors proud. ♪ we will overcome the pain >> creator, help me live in a way that will make my ancestors proud. ♪ warrior's spirits live within us ♪ >> help me live in a way that will help my ancestors proud. ♪ we shall remain ♪ we shall remain >> little brother, we will rise up from this darkness. little brother, we will overcome the pain. ♪ we shall remain >> remember, warrior's spirits live within us. we shall remain. >> i may pose to you something that i do when i feel sad or have great loss. it has to do with going back to familiar places, going back to my family, going back to where i grew up. indigenous nations are invited to return to their homes, the familiar places and the national park service is committed through providing youth opportunities with elders to go back to the homelands to walk in the moccasin tracks of their ancestors, to heal as the national park service opens up, sits and listens and learns from those whose hand we sit. we all need to go back sometimes to familiar places, to the places of which we came in order to heal sometimes. i am proud of the national park service for beginning to really open up to the elders, to the youth, and recognizing the places of our human existence here on this planet, in this continent that once belonged to and still belong to our indigenous people along with all of us who have inherited the lands that we call national parks. >> thank you, carol. >> thanks to wayne and julie and rhonda and carol for curating the film clips and introducing them for us. we now have about 50 minutes where we can engage in conversation, conversation with each other, conversation with all of you. you will note that we posed a series of questions, some big ones. so i'm going to review the questions with you. >> wayne asked, what are the things that have helped you or your loved ones heal? have the parks ever been a thought to help in that process? julie asked, what is a cause you care deeply about on a personal, intimate level or a public, society tall level and what could be effective, public platforms for addressing your cause both personally and/or publicly? rhonda asked, when did a park experience close to home prepare you for something bigger than you expected or launch a new understanding in ways that surprised you? and carol asked, have you or your family had a loss or a conflict that led you to self-destruction or great sadness and what helped you return to healthy balance? these are questions we posed to you. we welcome you to share your stories with us. we have microphones on both sides of the house. we welcome you to share your stories and we also welcome you to ask questions, make comments and observations and engage in conversation with our panelists. if you have a story to share or a question or a comment, please come on up to the microphone and while we're waiting for people to think of their questions and their stories, i will pose a question to each of you. so in your own personal journeys, i can tell that you are all very, very passionate about the work that you do. in your own personal journey, can you think of a time when you kind of knew, right, this was what was right for you and what was that connection? what made that connection for you? i'm going to put wayne on the spot. wayne, can you start? >> well, actually, it involves rhonda. rhonda was my boss at valley forge, my second park. we were just discussing in the back my last day at valley forge was veterans day, 2013. we had a guest speaker drop out. this speaker was supposed to speak to a group of people that i helped organize come to the park this group of people were brand new recruits in the united states army. my idea was, why not have them do their oath of enlistment in the place where the united states army was born. rhonda loved it. being a seasonal at the time, my thought was, i'm just a seasonal. i'm not going to be here long. is she really going to like it? that's the kind of boss rhonda is. we are all park rangers whether we are permanent or seasonal. we get this group. we organize it. they come down from the recruitment station in harrisburg, i believe it was. they brought a group of about 50. the night prior, i get a call from our special events coordinator, we have an issue. i need you to write a five to seven minute speech and give it tomorrow. being the good park ranger and soldier i am, i did it. i e-mailed it to our special events coordinator and that was it. i showed up to work the next morning and we had our event. when i was introduced and i'm standing up there, towards the end, i kind of ad libbed a couple things that weren't in the speech. i know just from the look. i remember the look on rhonda's face, was, where is he going with this? there must have been 300, 400 people there. probably about half the group were veterans. as i'm giving my talk, i removed my hat. i didn't want to talk to them as ranger wayne. i wanted to talk to them as staff sergeant rogers, somebody who had been there and walked their shoes. towards the end, i threw in there, and i told them, you are no longer our fellow citizens. you are now our brothers and sisters in arms. as i said that, there was kind of this hush in the crowd where it was like, whoa, that was deep. even i am going, whoa, that was deep. then, i invited all veterans to stand and retake that oath of commitment, that oath of enlistment with these 50 young men and women that were taking it for the first time. it was kind of like, wow, i did that. i realized at that point, it was kind of like, i'm going to make it. i'm going to do all right here. rhonda was the one who kind of gave me the thumb's up and sat back and gave me plenty of rope to hang myself. i handed her back plenty of rope. >> we recognize talent when we see it. we have a lot of confidence in you. >> i notice we have a member of the audience. so we'll go to you, sir. would you identify yourself? >> bruce guthrie. when i was a kid, our parents took us to a lot of national parks. since it was from their perspective, to me, i saw it as the family trip and i really couldn't identify. it wasn't until i became older and had my own values that i could reconnect and ken burns' civil war frankly was what started me going back to the historic parks and exploring the rest, because there is so much there. i'm told these days, it's hard to get kids off their butts and outside. at the same time, when i go to places now i'm seeing all the kids with pokemon goes and they don't look up, because the little guy they are collecting is over here. on one hand, pokemon go is great, because it is getting people up. but, on the other hand, they are not appreciating what they are seeing. i was wondering how you guys feel about that. is there some way to co-op, make it a more interactive experience with the parks? >> that's a terrific question. who would like to take a stab at that one? let me turn to one of the other panelists, since, wayne, you just spoke. >> certainly, i just sat on a committee for the national capital planning committee and the national parks service about envisioning monuments and memorials of the future and trying to do an eye deation session about what could we do to add an overlay to existing experiences and/or another layer to it that would allow people to think about an notating in real time. how has the story been transformed, what has moved forward. we looked at things through the lens of other designers and what you described was one of the things we discussed this morning because of the whole pokemon go kind of idea. what is it that we could do that would bring the eyes up and once those eyes are up, let people dive deeper in. it is part of that engagement conversation. i understand from some of the folks on our committee that the park service is already doing some of that, within some of the monument structures and other areas that you can look at those. i'm really fascinated by that and interested in where that's going. >> wayne, do you want to expand? >> i know the national mall did something, where it created a tour. correct me if i'm wrong. independence in philly, we're developing the same thing. many of the pokey stops. we have two pokemon gyms. when i left work yesterday, i owned one. my kid plays. i do it for him. we're developing a tour that takes us to a lot of the pokey stops that are set up at the second bank, independence hall, washington square. we are trying to develop a tour where, okay, we're going to go catch the pokemon. stop, look up. there is no more pokemon left. we caught them all. let's talk about where we are in front of. i know between the mall and us, i'm sure other parts are doing it too. >> one thing that's really exceptional about mobile technology, which, if you can believe it, it has only been around for like five years. now, there is one of these in almost everybody's pocket. not just rich people but everybody's pocket. this is a technology embraced by all different economic levels. it gets you out from behind your computer screen and helps you connect with the rest of the world. so we're actually seeing the embracing of the mobile technology as a wonderful way of engaging people and getting them excited not just about catching the pokemons but about exploring and expanding their horizons and with that, virtual reality and augmented reality on the horizon, this is going to be a really interesting tool for park tours. >> julia -- may i add one thing? >> in light of that, i want to emphasize one of the things we think is so important with the young people, specially like in the movie, i say, put them in the water. the kids, not the iphone. put the kids in wadeers and let them search for rusty crayfish, give them a helmet and a bike, put them on trails. put them in canoes, kids paddling on the water. besides the wonderful technology, we are always looking for ways to put them into the experience they would have never done on their own, on the trail, on the bike, in the water, in the trees, to be engaged in ways they never could imagine they would fintd themselves in. >> thanks. good point. >> please identify yourself. >> my name is denise domain. i just recently retired from the park service after 38 years. >> congratulations. >> thank you. i am so fortunate. i was in philadelphia and washington and wound up at the beautiful channel islands national park in california. i didn't expect this day to be so emotional. i'm very emotional, par at this time par it ticipating in that. just an observations, not necessarily a question. when i looked at the urban blazers in philadelphia, my hometown, i'm very emotional about that. i would like to see the panel take this information and i think we need to -- there is a little bit of a disconnect on getting this kids employment. i would like to see more mentors, specific mentors, even if we could just get one of those kids out of the 100 into the national park system. it is not easy. you need that one-on-one interaction and someone to take it to the next level. that's just my passion, if you will. i hope that you can take that back. >> thank you, thank you. >> i'm going to ask them, carol, to speak to that one. carol is actually -- her job is relevance, diversity and inclusion strategist with that very goal. >> also, one of my passions and thank you for all your service with the national parks service. as we begin to look at our next 100 years, the stories that we tell and the place that is we protect are critical that we as citizens of the united states begin to see them as ours and ours being collective and all of the diversity that makes us a nation and in that diversity in the ranger as well as other professional ranks is critical. i think p -- we-- well, i just our director say he is putting people at the center. an important piece to inviting diversity into any organization, is to also work on probably more important to work on inclusion and to build a place of inclusion where people feel valued and feel that their voice is being heard. i think we are going to start seeing that here as we enter into our next 100 years, that not only will we be looking at touching the lives of diverse america, inviting them into the employment of the national parks service, but making them feel like they are a part of something that they want to be sitting here 30 years from now in my seat talking about who they are and who their people are and the stories that make us a great nation. so thank you very much. >> reginald chapel? >> hello, everybody. i just want to say thank you to the panel, thank you for all of the curating that you did for today. the last question really sparked me to get up and to talk a little bit about my experience and maybe answer question number three. so i'm reggie chapel, actually with the national park service, the division chief of the office of partnerships and philanthropic stewardship. i have only been here four years. to work on the centennial and come in from the outside has been super-duper exciting for me. this idea of getting urban kids, i'm from an urban environment, los angeles, into the park service through this idea of programs and exposure to the parks, that's not been my experience at all. a little bit about my journey. i was in graduate school at ucla looking for an internship. the only internship i was interested in was this historic building, dunbar hotel, along central avenue in los angeles. it was the first black hotel that was built where all the jazz players stays in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s. it was the only place the pullman porters could stay when they came off of the railroad lines after work. for me, it became the place to build out my dreams around urban planning. i think there are other tracks that folks can actually take. so it is not just taking a kid to a park and then having them maybe think about a career but there are folks who are actually active in universities who are interested in careers but not necessarily knowing about the national parks service as an option. so i'm wondering if the -- and then the building i was affiliated with was actually on the national register of historic places. that's how i then found out about the historic tax credit program, became more interested, worked on mormon umts ae monume when i got a chance to apply for the park service, i'm here now. are there other programs where the workforce is right there waiting that it is connecting people to people and the park p programs. that's my question. >> analysts? carol? >> yes, there are. en reggie, thanks for asking that question. we have folks in the front row that run some wonderful programs bringing college students and grad students into the national park service through cultural resource programming. it is a great opportunity for ph.d. students and others seeking masters degrees to do their practical work within national park service and begin to be exposed to na. i would challenge us to reach even deeper into the diversity of the universities and sdbegino work closer to them to diversify the student population of which we are seeing apply for these type of jobs. our seasonal employment program is another opportunity. i would also challenge us as supervisors and managers in national parks to be more active and proactive in our communities in letting folks know that these opportunities do exist so that they can be a seasonal ranger like wayne was and experience the parks as an employee and hopefully become a career, dedicated employee of the national park service. we have to do our part. we have to reach out into the communities and say these jobs are viable. these are places where we want your voice. this is what we want to represent our nation's diverse stories. and be inclusive, not just in the workplace itself. we need to be inclusive in how we announce our jobs and i'll speak just a moment to the national park service people who are watching hooand who are her today. as supervisors, we have a critical role to going beyond hitting the submit button for usa jobs and doing all of our work before we do that, making sure that people understand p we have places for all of america. thanks, reggie, for bringing that to our attention and i challenge folks to take that to heart as we enter into our next century. hr does not recruit. hr announces our jobs for us. it is up to us and incumbent upon us to do the hard work of getting into communities. so thank you. >> hi, julia. >> identify yourself. >> i am jocelyn imani. i am a lot of things but amongst them, a former park ranger, i wanted to -- i like the way this conversation is going. carol made a great point just now, about the really critical role of supervisors, managers, but i would also include that to be other employees, as well as visitors. the quick and dirty is that i came to the national park service in 2010 as an intern, partner, volunteer, something. a couple of appointments later, most recently, i was the youth conservation core lead in grand canyon park. my journey in the park service started in washington and then to a park and then to a big, wide open western park, which is a little bit different. now, i'm at the smithsonian museum of african-american history and culture, opening september 24th. i can't state enough how critical it is for people to affirm folks to be exactly who they are. i am a historian of black power, a southerner, a woman. i bring all these various eye dents to myself when i am being ranger jocelyn. because i worked with julia, with carol, with margie, with a lot of people who affirmed me in being who i am at that time, fully and completely, when we get to grand canyon national park this summer, 2016, it's a little tense at grand canyon right now, if you pay attention in the news. in addition, i was the only black park ranger at grand canyon. there were, i counted, about 3, maybe 4 mexican-american park rangers and then that's it. >> how many people work at the grand canyon? >> an interpretation, probably 70 people overall, the rest of the diversity came in fees and maintenance. those are the divisions where the people of color were. i am there. we had 16 greeting youth interns, a total of 56 interns. one of the most diverse summers grand canyon ever had. i mentioned the greening youth interns, because greening foundation is an organization that services black african-american youth. this summer, when black men were murdered by the police, we were away from our communities, with no cell phone reception and no tvs and limited access to the internet, trying to hand this will really tense moment. i drove to mexico, because i was very angry and i came back and what i was able to do, because i've been affirmed in my identity already and taught very well in the mek mechanisms of how the park service work is lead a couple of facilitated die logs where the park became a place of healing and when i found, god bless the wonderful rangers that were there, that it was just a point of we don't know what to say. what can you say when a man was murdered in front of his child? the deputy chief of interpretation, had a child the same age as fernando castile's daughter. i was angry too. i had this love/hate relationship with our wonderful agency, mostly love. a couple of days, it was very frustrating. going back to carol's point, it is really critical for people. there was nobody else but me who could have had the conversation we had in that way, who else, who else. other people came and they were very grateful. it became a place of healing for staff as well as our interns. that was their first experience in the park service. they were feeling isolated. they couldn't talk about these things. instead, we made the park a place of healing. thank you guys, publicly, for your support and your enkaurnlgment. please keep up the good work. >> jocelyn, thank you for your good work. >> amazing story from an amazing woman. we really appreciate the work that you do, jocelyn. congratulations on your new job. i think one thing jocelyn brings up is the love/hate relationship with the organization. i will be very honest. i love the organization and have a love/hate relationship with the organization. i see the sen ten yell and today as a turning point. i see it as an opportunity. carol mentioned the directors talking about putting people at the center. i think we can. if we seize this moment and we seize this opportunity and say we want a diverse justice-seeking equitable national park service, we have to make it that. we can. i'm excited about that. i'm excited about your work this summer. thank you. we have someone at this microphone. please identify yourself. >> yes. i am going to open my mouth and show you how stupid i am. my husband used to say, keep your mouth shut. people may think you know something. i am helen lee. to get here, i started at 10:00 and i was still 15 minutes late. i may have missed something. my expectation of coming here was 100 years ago, james monroe was the president who started it, i wanted to hear it and spread it to my friends. i was late. so i may have missed it. the other thing is, i really would like to see an or ron dak and rush more and yellow stone and i would like to smell it. i have seen enough films but i haven't smelled it. do you organize any -- do you help people. i'm not in school. so i can't go to parks with a classmate. i'm beyond that stange. i don't have many years in my life. how do you help people to see the parks? >> excellent question, excellent question. >> thank you. >> panel list. rhonda? >> it is fun you summarized we are recruiting the young people and bringing them in buses to the park but what are we doing with the other visitors and senior adults? i think it just opens up more opportunity for us to network and brainstorm and think what we are looking for, the wider audience and more people's participation. thank four the challenge. i have seen lots of tour groups that have all sorts of advertised field trips by bus and take people to short trips and long trips all around the national parks circuit. that's one good option to consider. doing research on what organized tours are offered at different times of the year. i also think it is a great idea to join any sort of community civic organization that does this kind of field trip on their own. i know we have had several. we have one group in st. louis called the oasis. it is people facing the senior years and they are looking for places to go and things to do as a group. they come on national park field trips. i think that might be an option, check into the community organizations that are organizing those kind of field trips. from one contact to another, you might find some long distance trips that are available. it is a good challenge to think about ways we could get you on a bus besides the young kids and bring you to our park. so thanks for bringing that up. we'll have to ask more people more questions and see what we can offer. >> think i you bring up a larger issue that faces us as a society that is aging. as an aging society, we need to be thinking about all of those pieces of our experience. >> just to answer your question, it was woodrow wilson, who signed the organic act. i can't see where you went. there you are. it was president woodrow wilson who signed the organic act. you can see in the rotunda here today, you can see that legislation that he signed to make the national park service what it is today, 100 years ago today. we invite you to do that. i see that we have pa person at the microphone. would you please identify yourself? >> i would be happy to do that. i'm charissa decarlo. i work in the centennial office. it has been a privilege. i want to speak tower question about how we are bringing people of all ages into national parks. one of the great things i would love to highlight is through the centennial, we have really branched out and worked with a lot of our corporate partners to help create further opportunities to bring people to national parks and national parks to people. i would just like to thank a huge thank you to the national park foundation who is our philanthropic arm that helps us to do those things. in particular, i have to give a nice shoutout to humana. about a year ago, they did a great program where we brought seniors into parks. we called it senior skip day. it was specifically for anybody 62 and older. they actually purchased thousands of national park passes for seniors and made sure those got into the hands of seniors at no cost and also did some work with us in helping to bring people actively to sites. it really went all over the nation. it was also kind of an expanding of that park prescription program i think you heard a little bit about and about healthy parks, healthy people. so i'm really glad you asked that question. i think everyone deserves to be in their national parks. it is something to think about as we head into our next century about partnering with those that we have never worked with before or our neighbors up the street or a corporation up the road. we can do a lot together when we put our hands together and our hearts together and really make these opportunities happen. i really hope that starts to reach further and further. keep a lookout for that. we want to bring healthy parks to healthy people and keep that expanding further and further. a park prescription could be for everybody. >> could you give your name and number to her? >> i believe that another park service person just passed their card on. i think you might be smelling yellow ston yellowstone. i do want to take a moment to mention the passes available. we have a senior pass for $10 that gets you access free to all public lands. we also have an every kid in the park pass for all fourth graders and their families, which gets a whole year free to public lands, an access pass if you have a disability so that if you provide evidence of your disability, through the mail to us, you can have a lifetime free pass to the national parks. so there are many, many ways to have getting a pass. i think, carol, you had something to add. >> let me also just add a couple more passes. there are also active military passes. if you are an active military person, you can access a pass for you and your family for national parks. there is also one for the general public that you can purchase for $80. i think it is still $80 a year to get access into national parks. >> a whole year. >> those are two others. i wanted to just remind all of us, in the parks service to think about our history and what we did to bring people to national parks. we have a huge history that involves the railroads, that involves a lot of things that we might not be so proud of in terms of feeding bears and fire, waterfalls, et cetera, et cetera, that would bring people to national parks and the awareness. now, at 100 years. we think about how we can go out into the communities and we also think about the mobile devices and the abilities that we have digitally. we can not lose sight of this. what is it like to smell a national park. >> thank you for reminding us of that as we are so busy thinking about other way toss reach citizenry. thank you. >> can we have another person to speak? >> my name is vicky schwartz. i grew up in the west. i've been frequently visiting national parks since the '60s. i feel like i have a mixed message, visit the parks, visit the parks. i remember when yosemite was getting so crowded and i get this mixed message that we were overvisiting some of the larger parks. i don't understand the message. i go to small national parks, large national parks, historic parks, cultural parks and i don't understand the message. could you clear that up for me, please? >> we can try. panelists? >> well, i think there is a balance and as stewards of these places, the national park service needs to carefully look at that balance as we invite people to the places of their heritage. in that, some of our large western national parks some of the impacts that compromise that conservation. we need to balance that. i don't know what the future brings in that. i think that the message should be clear and should be very concise that the national park service invites all people to come and experience their heritage, to experience our nation through the stories and places, but that you also need to be careful in that balance. it's incumbent upon us as an agency and the professionals that work within that, not just human dimension of that but also the balance in the ecosystems and the historic structures that we are charged with preserving and protecting as well. so i'm sorry that you have a mixed message. everyone is welcome. as we go through time, we may start seeing we have to put some measures in place to balance that so that we can preserve and protect these places for our future generation. >> i would like to add to that that there are now 413, i believe. i think we just got the north woods of maine added by president obama. there 413 national parks across the country, parks in all 50 states and u.s. territories. mainly, when we hear the overcrowding comments, it is about yellow stoen astone yosem grand canyon. they are mainly overcrowded in the front country. not the back trails, not the distant parts of the wilderness they also protect but mainly the areas around the visitor centers and, for example, the valley of yosemite. they are mainly only overcrowded during the summer. so i think if you time your visit properly to those large places, you won't experience the overcrowding but i think we do have to balance visitor use and enjoyment with preservation and that's our job. p i don't see any more folks at the microphone. here comes one more. hello, miss karen. please identify yourself. >> my name is karen. i also work in the partnership office, the entire office has now spoken. i love sort of some of the things that we heard today, because i think as we go back into that partnership office, it gives us a way to think about how to do some more things, where to look for maybe more partnerships and more funding. i think you spoke to that. even just thinking about this conversation we had now is really maybe we need to do a little bit more with looking at youth groups and groups that serve our elders and pair them together so that when we are bringing children into wherever it is, we are bringing their elders as well. doing that together gives us that other opportunity to have the pair back in there homes. there are things like elder hostile and the canoemobile, wilderness inquiry, is also ways of getting people hoff different abilities in. i did give my card. so we will get some other ideas and things. thanks, for those of you who spoke and those of you who shared your stories. i think we can go back and make some really fun connections and see if we can get some more support for some of these things. inspiring, isn't it? >> yes, want to just pass it over to carol again on the elders and young people coming together because we're just putting our toe in the water with that idea. but do you want to speak just for a second on that? >> i will, yes. the national park service sponsors youth from native america. and their elders to come to the places of their ancestors. and is our second summer of doing this program. and there are many, many, many stories that i could tell you about the youth who hear about the stories of their past on the reservations and in the communities of which they've grown up and have never left those places to actually experience where these stories took place. and last summer, i was fortunate to be able to go on one of these where some young local people were able to go with their elders to little big horn battle field. to stand on the battle field and to be able to see the places where their ancestors fought for who they were, who fought for a way of life, who fought for -- who fought for their people was tremendous. the healing that takes place and the recognition and one of the things that i see in these young people as they begin to stand in the places and hear the stories from their elders, the same stories they've heard from their elders at home, but in place, the power of place is so critical as we start looking at healing. it's just -- it's just a powerful thing to see a sense of pride those young people who stood there and understood who they were maybe for the first time because they are the descendents of those who fought. so an incredible opportunity for me to see that. it's happening all over the country where we're bringing native youth and their elders to the places of their history. so -- >> thank you, carol. we need to draw the program to a close. and i'm going to invite each of the panelists to give us some parting thoughts about healing, resiliency, moving from conservation from conversation into the next 100 years of the national park service. i'll start here with wayne. >> hi, again. like i said at my intro, the parks service saved my life, it did. in the video, it saved another veter veteran's life. there are programs out there for veterans that are listening. i'm not exclusive in the parks service. there are veterans in the parks service now, young and old that need help. they come off as frustrated. let them get frustrated. let them work it out. for those who knows somebody that needs help, point them in the direction. maybe you might not think how is a cracked bell going to held a veteran heal. you would be very surprised. we veterans take our oath to this country very seriously. we also love our symbols. that cracked bell is a symbol that we defended. don't blow them off. help them, point them in a direction. there's programs whether it's the va, national part, joe down at the dollar store who will get a beer with them afterwards. it's hard for me to tell my story, but over the years, it has gotten easier. i said in an interview one time, the park service allowed me to tell my story without having to tell my story. my first two parks were at military parks. civil war battle, valley forge national historical park, revolutionary war. if that made sense, what i just said. so over the years, i was able to get everything that was in here out. and i made the american public the unknowingly, unwittingly victims of them getting that out. >> audience. >> beneficiaries. >> yes. >> but, i mean, whether they think it can help or not, the only way they're going to know, the only way you're going to know is to do it. and i used to have this conversation with rhonda when i worked with her. the one thing i hate is when people turn something down, turn an idea down. the only way you're going to know if it works is to do it. and if it doesn't work, nothing changes, you just go back to the way you were, until the next opportunity presents itself. those are my parting words. >> i think there's a couple of things that i'd love to address. i believe our national parks are a nation civic stage. within the park system whether it's the national mall which we certainly at the quilt have experience or in valley forge, you know, any number of places where we go, we are telling our nation's story. and how we care for those parks is how we care for our nation's story. so as we move forward and we think about places where some people may need to feel like they need healing or hope or feel abandoned by perhaps something in our civic arena, i can tell you this quilt was not welcome when we first came to d.c. there was a hard-fought battle or will you be allowed to tell this story that is about what the world per received as a gay story on our nation's civic stage. and now when we came back in 2012, when we came back in 1996, when we came back each and every year thereafter, there was a welcome fleet of national parks service employees, capitol police, all sorts of people began to understand that a national story needed to be told. so as we start to look at some of these very difficult conversations that involve truth and reconciliation which i think is at the center of a lot of the healing that communities are looking for and dialogues need to take place, our civic arenas, the lands that we own as citizens of this country make for the best backdrop for these conversations. so i'm honored to be a part of that story with our quilt and as a citizen who cares about each one of these stories. so, thank you. >> thank you, julie. ms. rhonda. >> here we are on our birthday today. we are rapping up our first 100 years of service and entering the next century. i don't want people to think that we have all the answers. part of this centennial initiative is that we have wonderful goals for our centennial plan. we have lots of initiatives to follow to put the best practices in to place. we also want you to know with some regards, as with any great endeavor, we're sort of building the bridge as we walk over it. there's been a past traditional philosophy perhaps that when we get the honor of wearing the green and the gray and wear the flat hat that we might think of ourselves as the experts. but what we're learning in this whole transformational process. it's an invitation to you to visit your works, whether they're the local ones or the crown jewels far away, but we'd like all of you in our audience, in our communities, in our neighborhood to look at this whole agency, this whole history with sort of a new set of eyes like we are. let us know what you want to tackle in your communities in ways that you think the agency or your park can help share resources. you're the content experts about the perspective from your lives and your family history and your personal background and your education, your experience. so the parks service is saying we have learned we cannot do this alone. and we're learning that more and more every day that we move forward. so it's just an open invitation to find your connection, come back to a park again. please go to your favorite park again, please go to a new park, work with the crowds at the big park. but just let us know what you see and what you want to do and how we can work together. we want to co-create the future with all of you. we don't want to be the sage on the stage. we want to be the guides on the side. we'd like you to be with us as we go on the trail as we paddle our canoes, create our curriculums, design our interpretive talks. that's how we face the future with great confidence and excitement is that you're with us and we're with you. >> that's great. >> carol? >> thanks julia and thanks again for everyone's attention. at 100 we have a rich history, but at the point in my life i began to look at the springboard to the future and the work that i do, again, i just challenge each of you to spend some time today thinking about not just our native nations, but all of the diversity that makes us america. and when was the last time you heard the stories, visited the places of someone different than you. it's a national park. and i encourage you to take the time to take that bridge into someone else's life into someone else's story to be able to put a new lens on and a new perspective of who we are as a nation. i think back to the work that i do in our indigenous communities and the dedication that i have put forth for myself to everything i do working toward giving a voice to those who have been silenced for so long. to hear the stories that have never been written in a book. they're in the national parks. our national parks are the books that need to be open and read in a different way, in a different narrative. to win cave, to all the places that we hold dear as a nation. i firmly believe that as a people, wherever you are on this planet, you preserve and you protect the people that are important to you. our nation has protected and held aside 413 national park units now full of the stories and the places that are important to us as u.s. citizens. i encourage us to begin to look at those stories through a whole different perspective. i honor those who came before us and the work that they did and as we move into our next century, i think i would like to charge the young people that are sitting listening to this, maybe even in the audience, if you always wanted to be a national park ranger, this is your time. this is your time to step up and tell your story. to guide people in the places of our heritage. i think about the generational trauma that they carry with us. president obama's program for indigenous youth. through unity, national park rangers that welcome those people to the parks to see and learn and smell the stories of their past. i look to the generational hope. thank you all again for being here and being a part of our centennial. [ applause ] >> a few more thank yous. thank you to the national archives. and the national park service who helped organize this. we appreciated being here and appreciated you being here. [ applause ] this weekend on cspan3, saturday evening at 7:00 eastern, from president lincoln's cottage in washington, d.c. we'll have a conversation with candace hooper about her book, four women who influenced the civil war for better or for worse. >> so you can see too that women have a means of reinforcing either the best in their husbands or the worst. >> then at 10:00, the 1953 film american frontier. >> and from there to the central office in oklahoma. day and night our little telephone board was lit up like a christmas tree. calls from new york, california houston, bit by bit we began to realize how big a thing this was. >> the film promoted the financial benefits for farmers of leasing land for oil exploration and funded by the american petroleum institute. then we discuss jack london and now his novel, "the call of the wild" influenced generations of western novelists and writers. >> we always look back to the natural land, to his ranch, to the beautiful scenery of california and elsewhere in the south pacific to center himself and to find release and relief from theor ry goigors and degra of the city. >> we visit the military aviation museum in virginia beach. >> this american, among a c