Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

There’s more to being a park ranger than putting on a uniform. That’s why the Citizen’s Park Ranger Academy exists at Dinosaur Valley State Park.

07— The academy is the brainchild of our then assistant manager Robert Enckhausen.

Tracy Mays is with Park Operations at Dinosaur Valley SP.

19—He came up with this idea so the citizens of the state could come and see firsthand what park rangers do. Not just park rangers, but police, EMTs, the wildland firefighters… and be able to be hands-on with the activities that we do day-to-day.

Tracy says the purpose of the academy is two-fold.

10—The academy basically is to get people intrigued about being a park ranger, and hopefully making more stewards for our future.

Last year was the first year for the academy, and one of the highlights happened after the helicopter landing zone class.

20—The day that they landed the care flight helicopter so that they could see what it was like to land a helicopter inside the park, well, maybe 30 minutes later we got a call that somebody had fallen, and we needed to land the bird again. And three of our Citizen’s Park Ranger Cadets were able to help us actually land the bird, since they had already done it.

I’ll have details about the academy tomorrow.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.