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More than 2,000 people gathered to celebrate the park’s 75th anniversary with a rededication ceremony at Newfound Gap on Wednesday. The event was staged to honor the visionaries who helped conceive the park idea and pay tribute to the many people who personally sacrificed for its creation.
The ceremony, held at the historic Rockefeller Memorial built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, was the same spot that President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the park in 1940, several years after the park’s establishment in 1934.
The ceremony showcased a host of dignitaries including Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the park’s entire congressional delegation. Superintendent Dale Ditmanson served as the master of ceremony. The other distinguished guests atop the stone memorial included Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks Will Shafroth, NPS Acting Director Dan Wenk, NPS Southeast Regional Director David Vela, North Carolina Senators Richard Burr and Kay Hagan, Tennessee Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, and the three representatives from the Congressional Districts surrounding the park – Tennessee Congressmen John Duncan and Phil Roe and North Carolina Congressman Heath Shuler.
Country music star and 75th anniversary ambassador Dolly Parton awed the crowd with her performance of two songs she had written in reverence of the park’s anniversary.
Among the invited guests were 10 Civilian Conservation Corps alumni who helped build the park, many of those families who were born in the park area but had to move to make way for its creation, and people who attended the original 1940 dedication. Additionally, local, city, and state officials as well as park partners and other supporters participated.
Park staff organized the event under the incident command system. Responsibilities included ticketing all the 2,000 attendees and implementing a shuttle system to transport all participants from satellite locations outside the park in Tennessee and North Carolina. About 130 NPS personnel, including the Southeast Region SET team and about 50 volunteers, assisted in managing the event.
Elements of the site preparation included working with Dolly Parton’s staff to incorporate a high tech sound system and large speaker platforms. Additionally, park staff set the stage and provided logistics for the restrooms, food service, EMS, and provided for the security of the dignitaries, no small matter with the number of high level officials attending with their staffs. Also assisting in security management were local law enforcement agencies.
Media involvement was extremely high with about 75 media representatives attending from about 30 different media outlets, mostly from Tennessee and North Carolina.
More than 2,000 people gathered to celebrate the park’s 75th anniversary with a rededication ceremony at Newfound Gap on Wednesday. The event was staged to honor the visionaries who helped conceive the park idea and pay tribute to the many people who personally sacrificed for its creation.
The ceremony, held at the historic Rockefeller Memorial built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, was the same spot that President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the park in 1940, several years after the park’s establishment in 1934.
The ceremony showcased a host of dignitaries including Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the park’s entire congressional delegation. Superintendent Dale Ditmanson served as the master of ceremony. The other distinguished guests atop the stone memorial included Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks Will Shafroth, NPS Acting Director Dan Wenk, NPS Southeast Regional Director David Vela, North Carolina Senators Richard Burr and Kay Hagan, Tennessee Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, and the three representatives from the Congressional Districts surrounding the park – Tennessee Congressmen John Duncan and Phil Roe and North Carolina Congressman Heath Shuler.
Country music star and 75th anniversary ambassador Dolly Parton awed the crowd with her performance of two songs she had written in reverence of the park’s anniversary.
Among the invited guests were 10 Civilian Conservation Corps alumni who helped build the park, many of those families who were born in the park area but had to move to make way for its creation, and people who attended the original 1940 dedication. Additionally, local, city, and state officials as well as park partners and other supporters participated.
Park staff organized the event under the incident command system. Responsibilities included ticketing all the 2,000 attendees and implementing a shuttle system to transport all participants from satellite locations outside the park in Tennessee and North Carolina. About 130 NPS personnel, including the Southeast Region SET team and about 50 volunteers, assisted in managing the event.
Elements of the site preparation included working with Dolly Parton’s staff to incorporate a high tech sound system and large speaker platforms. Additionally, park staff set the stage and provided logistics for the restrooms, food service, EMS, and provided for the security of the dignitaries, no small matter with the number of high level officials attending with their staffs. Also assisting in security management were local law enforcement agencies.
Media involvement was extremely high with about 75 media representatives attending from about 30 different media outlets, mostly from Tennessee and North Carolina.