Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas Outdoor Stories

Fort Worth native, Ryan Spencer says his father made a conscious commitment to spend time outdoors with him and his brother, even though his dad wasn’t much of an outdoorsman.

15—He wasn’t a lumberjack, you know. He didn’t know everything about the outdoors or anything like that. But, he made a commitment to my brother and myself that we were going to get outside. So, for the next seven years every single month we went camping as a family. It was amazing.

This exposure to nature had a profound impact on Ryan, and caused a ripple effect; today Ryan is a Park Ranger with the Texas Outdoor Families program.

36—If you’d asked me maybe three years ago, I probably would have told you I was going to be a lawyer. I managed to get an internship with Texas Parks and Wildlife; I worked out at Guadalupe river State Park for a good while. While I was there I just really developed this profound sense of accomplishment from helping people enjoy state parks. They’re such a wonderful resource, and they’re all over the state of Texas, and they can do so much for a family that it was just a no brainer. And as soon as I got the opportunity to get on board with Texas Outdoor Family – I jumped at it. Because, I knew that it was going to give me a chance to really make a difference in a lot of people’s lives, and I’ve been blessed to be able to do that ever since.

For Ryan, Life’s Better Outside.

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

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 21st, 2013 at 12:00 am and is filed under Outdoor Stories, State Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.