Good morning beloved friends! It's Audrey Peterman

Today I am coming to you for the first time as the newly-minted Centennial Leadership Awardee of the National Parks Conservation Association. I feel so affirmed as my message has not changed over a quarter century: Our National Parks belong to everyone and only when they are known and treasured by everyone will they be "safe," so let's hasten to introduce those who don't know. How can they be "the best idea America ever had" if they have to be "protected" from Americans.

On stage with me at the National Museum of the American Indian April 6 was Alan Spears, Cultural Manager at the NPCA and a close friend who counters that, perhaps, the abolition of slavery was an even better idea. My fellow honorees, the 15th Director of the National Park Service Robert "Bob" Stanton, and Blackfeet Interpreter and Lyricist Jack Gladstone had powerful stories to tell. You can see the program in this video, thanks to NPCA.

I'm writing today mainly to encourage you to watch the video to learn more about national parks and to increase your optimism for the future. Within a week of NPCA's Salute to the Parks former President Obama launched his Netflix series, "Our Great National Parks," for which multiple friends around the country are sending me announcements on a daily basis.

From my perspective, this looks like the optimal time for a great collaboration linking the efforts of the charismatic president to the efforts of the national parks advocacy organization and the diverse leaders that was just honored. The obvious results would be a "gestalt" in which the sum total becomes bigger than its individual parts, with millions more people loving the parks and being inspired by them.

With airline woes and the pandemic combining to make travel challenging, this is the optimum time for the national parks and supporters to develop programs that can be deployed through the mass media to show what they provide us - inspiration, rejuvenation, authentic history at the place where it happened. We can show how every ethic group can find their story of triumph and indispensable contributions to the development of America that make us proud. We can learn the principles of "No Trace Left Behind" so that when we can travel to the parks, we hold them in absolute reverence as our birthright and the heritage of our descendants. We have a lot of preparatory work to do.

I have seen many promising projects deflate over the years due to territoriality and the need for each player to keep control of their funding stream. I am not accusing anyone of this intent. I AM affirming that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see how we could collaborate to build massive momentum for connecting the parks and people, to the improvement of our country.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service is kicking off National Parks Week tomorrow April 16 by waiving all entrance fees for the day. Even if you can't go, pay attention and learn something new from my subscriber-supported Joy Train, such as why I apologized to the grass when we first came back from seeing national parks.

Bless you!