((TOP)) A Little Agency Little Melissa Picturesl
Nadia Grubb
I have always been a Nature Girl. This is me at age 8 in summer camp in Cooperstown, New York. I was that little girl who collected pine cones and leaves. I had funerals for spiders, and I rescued bugs. I also started foraging as a child in summer camp and loved to shock my friends by eating the petals on day lilies. It is no surprise that I live on a rural island and I forage for a lot of the food that we eat.
MELISSA HARRIS: Can you tell me a little bit about your life before 1968, before what became known as Prague Spring? Not just photographing, but what else was important to you, and whether or not you were political.
11:55 Melissa Hurtado: I really appreciate you giving us your insights with that. And I just kind of want to talk about the power of place and bring it back to just aspects and conversations of the National Park Service, as well as your connections with it. So you mentioned in a previous interview, that the National Park Service as an institution is making serious efforts to look more like America, and that the most successful efforts to improve diversity often come from the bottom up. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?
14:32 Daniel Agudelo: Yes, you're totally right. You know, all of these initiatives do help ripple out, you know, and then the park starts to see, you know, these effects. And I'll give you guys a little personal story. Well, when I was a wee little baby, seasonal Ranger, I took it upon myself to do a Spanish lead guided walk, right. I am fluent in French. And it's funny how I use more French than Spanish at Everglades National Park. You're in South Florida, you'd expect to have visitors that speak Spanish. No, you know, so I said, well, gee, how can I make the park more accessible? Well, let me create this Spanish led guided walk. And I thought it was going to be easy. I thought it was going to be, you know, copying and pasting my English program script on Google Translate and translating it. But it wasn't that easy. Now, when I did this program, I said, well, how can I bring in this audience that I want, you know, I want people to know that you don't need to speak English to enjoy Everglades National Park, you know, so the audience that I wanted, wouldn't have been the audience that would have checked regularly on the social media of the National Park. So I said, let me reach out to the newspaper, and the Hojera to advertise this. I mean, they were able to advertise this program, you know, because different audiences do different things, whether they listen to the radio, you know, or you have Caracol, or you have these other famous Spanish radios, or you have the newspapers you have Telemundo. Univision, you know, so you can't you know, it's different, you know, people think, you know, it's all a monolith. But it is not a monolith, you have to really kind of dive in and see the type of audience you want, and how you interact with them. Well, I got my publication out in Hojera, then I did my program. I had about 25 people show up, which was successful in its own right, you know, whether I had one person, 25 people, or 500 people. I did my due diligence, which was to provide information out there, you know, and it worked. Because I had a family, a Venezuelan family, who were recent immigrants, to Miami from Venezuela. And they had known about the Everglades. They had seen documentaries of the Everglades on National Geographic in Venezuela, and they were so excited. But they swore that they needed to speak English, to enjoy the park. So they were going to wait until their young son turned of age so that then the young son can guide them through the National Park. Well, they were reading the Hojera, and they read this article that said, wow, Everglades National Park is advertising this free Spanish lead walk... I want to sign up. And so then they go out. And they tell me this story. And I say, wow, well, that was the mission. Mission completed, you know, the fact that people now know that you don't have to speak a certain language to enjoy something is just so powerful. And that, again, ties in with the whole salsa movement. You know, sometimes you don't have to speak the language to enjoy something that can be universal, you know. So that is a nice little personal story that I wanted to share with you guys. Hopefully, that, you know, can be tied in with this whole salsa movement. You know, because it's true. A lot of people are hesitant, or people don't do research, or people don't feel connected, when in reality is a lot more stuff that can get you connected. And salsa. Universal. Being out in these parks. Universal. These spaces of community where you can interact with people of all different walks of life and all different nationalities is awesome. You know, so you have your dancing stage, walking these trails, or dancing the night away, in Ball and Chain or these other salsa clubs.
In 1962 Mr. Bridwell found himself having to support a wife and infant daughter on extra money he picked up doing freelance artwork. He considered supplementing his income by illustrating picture books. An editor at Harper & Row advised him that he might find success by writing a story about one of his pictures. Because of his young daughter, Bridwell chose to write a story about an illustration he had made of a little girl and a big red bloodhound. He decided to make the dog very big and more of a general, all-around dog instead of a bloodhound. Mr. Bridwell wanted to name the dog Tiny, but his wife thought the name too boring. She suggested the name Clifford, after an imaginary play friend from her own childhood. With that settled, Norman Bridwell decided to name the little girl in his book after his own daughter, Emily Elizabeth, and within a few days he completed his story. Three weeks after submitting his story and illustrations to Scholastic Books, the publishers called with an offer to publish his work.
Just a little bit about the sequence of events this morning. The Chairman and Commission are going to have us go through a special presentation shortly in which we have a chance, again, to celebrate some special awards and recognitions. At the conclusion of that, the Chairman is going to call for a brief recess for all of you who want to depart the Commission meeting, to go ahead and take that opportunity to leave; and then he'll re-adjourn the meeting and at that time, we'll hear the rest of the items on the agenda.
A few little minor housekeeping items, if we could. Just if I could ask everybody to go ahead and silence their cell phones and if it turns out you've got an urgent call or conversation you need to have, I'd respectfully ask that you step out and do that in the hallway. Thanks for being with us today.
He's just been a model game warden for us. He does so many things behind the scenes that people don't see and don't know about. Always protecting the resource. He and his wife live in Montgomery County. Incredibly embedded in that community, coaching little league, President of the Youth Sports Association, and just really exemplifying our community-based law enforcement and we couldn't be more proud of the fact that dean is being honored this year with the 2017 Conservation Officer of the Year Award from the National Wild Turkey Federation. We're very fortunate to have a bunch of our colleagues and partners from the National Wild Turkey Federation that have come to celebrate this award, and I want to ask Larry Noble, the President, to come up to present this award to Dean and we'll get a picture. Let's give Dean a big round of applause. Dean.
MR. LARRY NOBLE: Where is he at? Micah come on up here and join us. I'm kind of favorable to East Texas, too. That's where I was raised at in the big thicket. But for all your efforts and whatever you do, I haven't been up through there in a long time; but I'm sure the last time I went through there, there was lots of changes going on. For your efforts and everything else, from the National Wild Turkey Federation, we do lots of stuff with Texas Parks and Wildlife; but here's a nice little trophy for you.
MR. SMITH: We're going to now honor colleagues for literally decades of service and I want you to take note when I say this: Our very first honoree has worked proudly for this Department for 45 years. And I don't want any of you to take this personally when I tell you this, but Ms. Bettye Simms, who works in our Law Enforcement office out of Beaumont with Captain Ousley, when we told Ms. Bettye -- as the team calls her -- that we wanted to honor her in front of the Commission and let the Commission thank her for her 45 years of service, she politely declined and said while she appreciated that, that it seemed a little frivolous given all of the work that she had to do back in the office. And so God bless Rod for hauling her up here so we could say a word of thanks after 45 years of serving this Agency.
It's just absolutely amazing. She started out in the Lufkin Law Enforcement office when, of course, we were issuing paper licenses and so all of that was written in hand and duplicates and triplicates and you can imagine just what a nightmare that was. Bettye lived and breathed it. She was just invaluable to that office, working with our Law Enforcement related team. In 1999, she transferred over to Beaumont and quickly became the go-to person on all of the boat registration related issues on the coast. Became an expert in saltwater fisheries related regulations, both on the recreational and the commercial side. You know, she worked and trained up ten different captains over the course of her career. She's had 150 game wardens that have come to her for all kinds of motherly advice during her time and she's just been such an extraordinary ambassador for this Agency and it's also, I have to say, a little bittersweet too because she has told us after these 45 years, she's also going to be retiring and well earned, I would say. And as Captain Ousley has said, he's going to spend the next five weeks begging her to stay. And y'all help me try to do that, 45 years of service, Ms. Bettye. Bettye.
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