FRIENDS OF BANDELIER NEWSLETTER August 2008 We received a letter from Superintendent Brad Traver informing us that the New Mexico State Historical Preservation Division conferred the 2008 Archaeological Heritage Preservation Award to the Conserve Frijoles Canyon Cavates Project at Bandelier. The Friends funded several bits of the project over the years, most especially a set of photographs documenting all of the cavates (over a mile in length) taken from the opposite rim of Frijoles Canyon. The project was very important to the Bandelier rangers. Photographer Steve Tharnstrom of Albuquerque admitted that the working conditions were a bit strenuous, but the view made it all worthwhile. Initially, we did not have the funds to support the project and Steve was considering how to scale back to the money we had available. But then, "angels" stepped in and donated the entire amount in memory of the Nicholas family of Santa Fe. Steve made three sets of photos, one for the National Archives, one for the state archives, and one for Bandelier, all credited to the Charlotte Nicholas Gray/Edward and Elizabeth Nicholas Memorial Fund. Board Business: Diane Albert has resigned from the board. Originally, Diane was a PhD Materials Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She left the lab to attend law school at the University of New Mexico. She has now completed her degree, passed the bar, and works in Albuquerque for a firm specializing in intellectual property law. Diane's school schedule made it difficult for her to get to board meetings, and her busy life hasn't settled down much since graduation. She felt it was best to leave the board. Diane is our park junkie, visiting national parks throughout the country. We do have a new board member. Our current board member, Mary Burchill, lives in Kansas. Her husband Brower always came along when they drove to board meetings. Sometimes Brower sat in on the meetings. It soon became obvious that he was an experienced board type, had good ideas, and gave good advice. I conned him into applying for board membership and the board unanimously voted him in. Brower is especially interested in Native American issues, and has long been involved with Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. He has a PhD in cellular radiobiology and has served as professor and in administration at the University of Kansas. Brower and Mary have been intermittent seasonal volunteers at Bandelier since 1995. Many of you may remember Brower from his manning of the entrance station. New Grants for 2008: The Board of the Friends agreed to support Pueblo bread baking ($900) and Pueblo dancers ($1,200) during the three summer holidays--Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day. We hope some of you have been able to enjoy these events up to now. Centennial Matching Grants: Please recall that we granted $40,000 for two matching grants for FY 2008 and FY 2009. The first, entitled Modeling Sustainability, is to create a five-year plan to make Bandelier a "climate-friendly" park. The rangers have met with facilitators to create goals for reducing Bandelier's carbon footprint and determine how best to go about meeting the goals. Bandelier's current emissions are really quite small; simply by buying carbon credits, the park could continue its not-very-polluting ways. However, the rangers are not the type of people to be satisfied with such half-measures. They want to actually, personally, reduce climate-altering pollutants. Their stated goal is to reduce Bandelier's footprint to zero by 2016, the 100th anniversary of the park. The National Park Service has a website that calculates the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) various park activities generate. Park personnel can thus determine which actions would most efficiently meet their goals. Wildlife biologist Stephen Fettig gathered all the data (utility bills, vehicle fuel costs, etc.). The results indicate that buying a hybrid vehicle (they have to travel to Denver and Phoenix a lot) and installing solar panels to generate electricity would have the largest immediate effect. Tucking in small projects as funding allows, like installing energy efficient light bulbs, also helps reach the goals. Bandelier is hosting a climate-friendly park Logo Contest for children up to age 14. The design of the logo should relate to the idea of Bandelier National Monument's staff and visitors working together to make the park as climate friendly as possible and/or why this is important for the future. Rangers will use this logo to showcase efforts to be a Climate-Friendly Park. Deadline is July 15, 2008. For more information about this contest, call the visitor center at (505) 672-3861, ext 517 or visit Bandelier's website at www.nps.gov/band on the Home Page under Visitors. The second grant, Facilitated Focus Groups, targets underserved, non-traditional park visitors, in Bandelier's case, Hispanic and Pueblo people in northern New Mexico. Chief of Interpretation, Lynne Dominy, informs me that they are currently working with leaders of affiliated pueblos, especially Cochiti. To develop specific plans to make Bandelier more relevant to the interests of pueblo people, Lynne has contracted with the Social Research Laboratory of Northern Arizona University. She hopes to conduct meetings with the pueblos in September-October and meeting with Hispanic leaders in October-November. New Mexico State Parks is a partner in this project in hopes of also making their parks more relevant. Other news: Chief of Resource Management, John Mack, has left Bandelier to take similar duties at Rocky Mountain National Park. It is a larger park with different challenges, but mostly, it is closer to his beloved Montana (and his wife, who recently took the job of housing facilitator at Rocky Mountain NP). Donors to the Friends often specify that they want their funds targeted to help trail work. We rarely get requests from the park for trail work, but we were occasionally able to funnel special funding to John for trails and backcountry maintenance. He was always grateful and did the work speedily with good results.
In Honor of Margaret Anderson Margaret and Richard Anderson have been donors since 1991, almost charter members. It is always sad to lose a Friend. |