Beginning on the 22nd, I spent a week working night shift at Independence Hall with former ProRangers Nick Fitzke and Jordan Keiffer. It was tons of fun to get to see what working at a park with 24-hour operations is like – and it felt a little bit like Night at the Museum during our walk-throughs and building checks!
I started the week on Thursday and spent my first three days with Ranger Fitzke, then finished up with Ranger Keiffer on Sunday. Thursday night was pretty quiet – we went to the Deshler-Morris House and the Poe House, neither of which I had been to before, and I got some good PT in.
Notably, on Thursday night, we were lucky to have former Superintendent (of Buffalo River National Park) Kevin Cheri as a guest speaker in our weekly internship class. Mr. Cheri was the first ever Black employee of Buffalo River National Park when he started there as a Law Enforcement Ranger in 1978. He continued his career at many different parks over the years, but ultimately returned to BUFF as Superintendent in 2007. Mr. Cheri offered a remarkable perspective as someone who served the agency for 43 years and ended up championing and prioritizing diversity in the park service throughout his career. (You can hear directly from Mr. Cheri about his story in an oral history podcast he participated in at https://www.nps.gov/subjects/oralhistory/podcasts-episode-8.htm ).
On Friday, I took the obligatory Liberty Bell picture during our building check:
And we were alerted to the presence of kittens in the garden outside the bell center! Traps were set out for them and the orange one was caught by the morning (although his brother was a little more elusive!). They will be either neutered and released or adopted out.
Saturday was a lot busier. We started the shift with a report of an elderly man walking around naked outside of the Bell Center. Thankfully, by the time Ranger Fitzke and I arrived, one of the other rangers had been able to get the man’s pants back on, and we just waited with him for an ambulance to come so that he could get an evaluation since he was a little agitated. He then went to the hospital for a voluntary mental health visit.
Later that night, someone broke into Carpenter’s Hall. They forced the front door, damaging it in the process, but they didn’t take anything, and security footage later showed that they spent most of the time they were in the building taking pictures of themselves there. Unfortunately, the front door of Carpenter’s Hall is historic, so they damaged an important historical artifact for the sake of a few selfies.
Sunday was pretty quiet as well, but we went down to Gloria Dei Church (which is part of the park) and walked through some of the museum exhibits connected to Franklin Court, including a really cool one about archeological findings in the Franklin Court Complex called Fragments of Franklin Court. Since the building isn’t usually open to the public, I felt really lucky to be able to see the exhibit there.
After my week on night shift, I had a couple days off and then had a chance to work with the park’s administrative division. I spent Wednesday and Thursday with Cecily Wood, who splits her time between FRST and INDE. I learned a lot about the budgeting and purchasing processes and we handled some PIV card appointments. Then, on Friday, it was time for the ProRanger Site Visit!
The site visit was a ton of fun – it was great to have a chance to show Mr. Luongo and Dr. McGarvey around where I have been spending my summer. We did a short hike at the park and then went to the New Castle Court House Museum for a guided tour, then had lunch in New Castle.
In the next few days, I’ll be finishing up my time at FRST and getting ready to start the academy, so expect one last blog post coming soon!
