This is your life, Yosemite! This past week the park has been filled with hundreds of Yosemite alumni, gathered together in the first Yosemite Reunion. Butch Farabee, past park ranger, and Kim Tucker, present park employee, organized the three-day event, which drew people from all over the country. Being a relative newcomer, I gazed at nametags that also had the dates of park tenure, some stretching back over decades. The park has an incredible legacy of people.
Additionally, Butch Farabee just published a new book, National Park Ranger: An American Icon. The book explores the history of park rangers, described by Farabee as “an amalgam of Jedi Knight, Favorite Teacher, and Smokey Bear. As stewards of our nation’s treasures, they are heir to five thousand years of tradition: they celebrate this legacy with pride, reflect it with humility.”