Being a Park Ranger and Superintendent at Elk Knob State Park, North Carolina--Tracy Minton

Interview with Tracy Minton, conducted in the staff break room at Elk Knob State Park, by Willard Watson and Ashley Warren for the Blowing Rock Art and History Museum, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, in conjunction with the Smithsonian's traveling exhibition "The Way We Worked."

Who are you? When and where were you born?
"My name is Tracy Minton; I am the Park Superintendent at Elk Knob State Park. I was born in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina in 1971, October 14. I grew up close to Stone Mountain State Park, and the Blue Ridge Parkway, more specifically Daughton Park, in a small place called Hayes, North Carolina. I consider myself a Southern Appalachian person, I’m very proud of that. People speak differently there, they look at things a little different there, do things a little differently there than other people in the country in my opinion and I’m pretty proud of that."

What do you do for a living?
"I’m the Park Superintendent at Elk Knob State Park, I’ve been here at this park for five years and I’ve been a Park Ranger or Park Superintendent for going on about 19 years, so I have a lot of experience with the Division of Parks and Recreation and I’ve moved around to several parks in my career, mainly in mountains of North Carolina, which I’m very fond of."

Where was the first park you worked at?
"I worked at a park in Bladen County, North Carolina called Jones Lake and I was a young man graduated from Appalachian State and I applied for several jobs and after working and being a seasonal employee, I was lucky enough to get a job with Division of Parks and Recreation entry level and worked at a recreation area where there was a lake and a swimming area and that kind of thing - which is completely different from what we do in the mountains. It was a great beginning experience and I met a lot of people from different places, different cultures, and it exposed me to a lot of new things in life..."

Read the full transcript below. 

Tags: BHS-work, BHS-Main-Street, BHS-Job-You-Had

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