“Some days I pinch myself that a city boy from Memphis can come back to Tennessee and manage the most visited national park in America,” Cassius Cash told Dave Hoekstra, author of The Camper Book.
Cash tells kids visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park that he started his career as a wildlife biologist by surveying northern spotted owls in the woods at night – “I had to face my demons and let my curiosity of success overcome my fear of failure.” He’s now the second youngest and first African American to become superintendent of the 522,000-acre park where he oversees 190 permanent employees.
“Urban kids are as afraid of the outdoors as suburban kids are of inner cities,” he said. “Children ask me how it feels to be ‘the only’ in the wide world of the outdoors. I tell them you don’t wait to be accepted. You bring your own party.”
There is no cell phone reception in the park, which Cash calls “Beautiful. That’s what the kids remember.”
And Hoekstra, the writer guy, is coming to Eureka Springs for a book signing July 11 at Brews. We’re going.
Photo by Jon Sall