Chatt TFP: "Outstanding New Interpreter" award Red Clay State Historic Park ranger nets award for 'Outstanding New Interpreter'at Red Clay State Historic Park, located on the GA line.
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Red Clay State Historic Park ranger nets award for ‘Outstanding New Interpreter’
17 hours, 13 minutes ago by Ben Benton
Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Red Clay State Historic Park's interpretive Ranger Taylor Young has been recognized as 2025's "Outstanding New Interpreter" by the National Association for Interpretation. In the background is the park's Blue Hole Spring, one of Young's favorite features of the park.
CLEVELAND, Tenn. -- Who'd have thought a nature lover from Apison, Tennessee, would grow up a 10-minute drive from her dream job?
Red Clay State Historic Park's interpretive ranger, Taylor Young, nearly missed her chance because the park had been so close for so long that she was looking farther from home as she graduated from Austin Peay State University in 2021 with a biology degree and an eye toward the future.
Now, Young has been recognized as 2025's "Outstanding New Interpreter" by the National Association for Interpretation for the job she's been doing at the 263-acre state park near the Georgia state line in Bradley County where she plans to spend her career. The association defines interpretation as "a purposeful approach to communication that facilitates meaningful, relevant and inclusive experiences that deepen understanding, broaden perspectives and inspire engagement with the world around us."
"There are pictures of me from here that I don't even remember being here," Young said with a laugh. "Back probably to early elementary school is when I went on a field trip here, because if you're from around here, everybody went on a field trip here."
Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Red Clay State Historic Park's interpretive ranger Taylor Young has been recognized as 2025's "Outstanding New Interpreter" by the National Association for Interpretation. In the background is the park's Blue Hole Spring, one of Young's favorite features of the park.
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The park site was the last seat of Cherokee national government before the 1838 enforcement of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 by the U.S. military, which resulted in most of the Cherokee people in the area being forced west on what would be called the Trail of Tears, according to a history on the state website. It was at the Red Clay Council Grounds that the Cherokee learned they had lost their mountains, streams and valleys forever.
The setting is not unlike Young's own rural home just over the Hamilton County line, bustling with plants and animals, she said at a cluttered table inside park headquarters in Cleveland, Tennessee. Young, 25, as a child loved wildlife, watched Animal Planet and "The Crocodile Hunter" on television, and she has discovered children are her favorite visitors because they share her wonder.
"I have the unparalleled privilege of showing kids that they have an impact on the world, that the history we're learning doesn't exist in a microcosm, and that they too, even as kids, they can have an impact on history, because what they do matters," she said.
After an initial taste of zookeeping while wrapping up coursework in college, Young found a strong interest in animals while working seasonal ranger jobs at Red Clay and at Fall Creek Falls State Park in Spencer, Tennessee, she said. She was keeping an eye out for job openings when 14 positions across the state were posted for a relatively new state park job called an "interpretive ranger."
"I was like, 'OK, I don't know what the heck that 'I' word is, but ranger sounds cool,'" Young said of her conversation with her grandmother while making her application. "I was talking to her on the phone while I was filling it out, and I put Harrison Bay down and Booker T. Washington."
Then Young's grandmother reminded her of another nearby park.
"And she said, 'Well hang on a second, Red Clay is 10 minutes down the road from your parents' house. Put Red Clay down.'
"Within my first two weeks of working here as a seasonal ranger, I knew that this is where I wanted to be," Young said.
Before long, Young was selected for the new interpretive ranger post at Red Clay, and she found herself intrigued by the site's history and context.
(READ MORE: Red Clay, Fall Creek Falls get new signs with clearer details on trails)
"I saw the passion and the care with which Erin Medley, my manager, and Logan Cammarata, the other ranger, taught it to me and presented it to other people," she said, also noting interactions with the Cherokee tribes for whom Red Clay is sacred ground. "I was like, 'Oh. Like, this is real.' It's one of the first times for me in my whole life that history had felt real and palpable."
It's that same passion for knowledge and historical context Young wants to pass along.
"Nature is cool, and I'm excited about that, too, but you really can't have natural history without the cultural history to create that full picture," she said.
(READ MORE: WATCH: Red Clay State Historic Park introduces AI avatar to teach Cherokee history)
Young's boundless enthusiasm for her job made her an easy nomination for the award, according to park leaders' remarks in a statement on the award.
The award recognizes someone who has worked less than five years in the profession and who demonstrates a recognized potential in interpretation, leadership skills, creativity in programming development or projects, and a commitment to the profession and the association.
Young has fans among the park's visitors.
"The summer of 2021, I took my granddaughter, Delilah Jane, to one of Taylor's programs," Joy Long wrote in a post on the park's social media page. "Taylor is amazing!"
Delilah Jane echoed her grandmother's sentiments.
"I love Taylor so much," Delilah Jane wrote in a post. "I met her when she was just a summer intern, and I just fell in love with her immediately and still know her to this day. Taylor knows my whole family, and everyone loves her because she just such a kind caring soul."
Contact Southeast Tennessee reporter Ben Benton at bbe...@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569.
Ben Benton is a news reporter at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He covers Southeast Tennessee’s Bledsoe, Bradley, Franklin, Grundy, Marion, McMinn, Meigs, Rhea and Sequatchie counties.
Ben has worked at the Times Free Press since November 2005. Ben was born and raised in Cleveland, Tennessee, a graduate of Bradley Central High School. He has a bachelor's degree in communications from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
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