My first trip to the Grand Canyon was in 2005 and I was actually moving to the Grand Canyon.
I’d never been here before, I’d never been west
and growing up in Georgia I wasn’t really sure what to expect but when I got here,
actually to this exact spot, the vastness of the canyon was overwhelming to me.
The wide open space. The ability to see for miles and miles.
A condor flying over, a giant bird, I’d never seen anything quite like it in my life.
It started hailing. I didn’t know anything about the climate or the environment, I just knew I was moving to the desert.
I was searching for something. I wanted to hike and experience the outdoors and I was hoping to find that here.
I didn’t quite realize it in that moment, that was the first day of the rest of my life.
One of the most special things for me personally living and working at Grand Canyon for the National Park Service
is contributing to the life changing experiences of over 5 million people a year and being part of such a small community that’s doing
that, I cherish that responsibility as well as the rest of my National Park Service family.
For me, on a day to day basis, you know, it's sometimes easy to forget that we have been around for more than a hundred years.
A hundred years for the park service but over a hundred years for a lot of other parks.
But in the end, the thing that that really keeps our mission going, is knowing that we’re a well-established organization
that people value and there is a reason that we’re all here.
There are so many benefits to being a ranger. It doesn’t get boring. Everyday there is something new.
It’s handling the little fires that pop up and everyday operation whether it’s from EMS calls to search and rescue to wildland fires.
That’s what we handle. And we do that to ensure the park and the visitors are safe and can come back and enjoy this place.
We’re not the reason the park is here but we’re here to ensure that it stays here. And that it remains a park.
My name is Mary Hiltunen. I’ve lived here in the park since eighth grade, about 15 -16 years.
I’ve been in and out of the pathways and students house. I work in different jobs with the park service.
I currently work as a custodial member on the South Rim where I clean the restrooms and the Visitor Center
and take out the trash and do litter pick up.
I take great pride in my job and it makes everyone respect the park a little more
and see how much we love our park.
It’s very rewarding for me to have a connection with each one of the visitors here that are at my window.
It’s very important to know that I may be the only one that they see during their trip here into the park and
I need to make sure they have a good experience here so that they are able to have a good experience throughout the park.
Well, my name is Bruce Kilbride and I am Lynn Krabbe. We’re married and we’re volunteers here in the park.
We’ve volunteered for Grand Canyon National Park for 4 summers, this is our 4th summer.
Sometimes here at the nursery your kind of hidden away but it is good to volunteer kind of out in the more public areas of the parks
because then little kids can see ‘You know, My Gosh, you know, somebody's doing something without getting paid, you know,
they are volunteering, maybe they should think about volunteering. So, it’s good to set an example.
Well, I think it’s important to engage our youth because if we don't have a base of youth,
of incoming people for the park service to help preserve and protect these resources,
we’re not going to have stewards for the future. Our parks will not have strong employees,
won’t have the science resource management backgrounds or the public speaking skills to help preserve these places
and preserve it for future generations which is our mission.
Well, I am extremely proud to be here at Grand Canyon during our centennial. To be standing here representing the park service,
it’s really amazing to connect people to these stories that we have here. We have a hundred years of celebrating this National Park Service,
protecting these resources and to allow people to connect to them,
allows them to care about them and want to continue to protect them for our next hundred years.
Being a part of the National Park Service legacy and a centennial year means so much to me
because of the positive impact and the influence that, not just Grand Canyon, but the Park Service, has had on me personally.
I feel a duty, kind of an obligation to pay it forward, to share my story, to share my experience,
because I feel like that's the way to get folks to get connected, to get them into the park,
to actually come here and feel it, to go below the rim, to go on the trails, to be here at nighttime, and experience the night sky.
You can see the milky way. It’s an incredible feeling and I want to do my part to pay it forward.