NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT


To:         All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:       Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date:   Thursday, September 14, 2000

ALMANAC

On this date in 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became 
president upon the death of William McKinley, who had been shot by 
Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, at the Pan-American Exposition at 
Buffalo, New York, on September 6th.  Roosevelt was inaugurated at the 
home of Ansley Wilcox in Buffalo, now Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural 
National Historic Site.

INCIDENTS

00-580 - Colorado NM (CO) - Car Clout Arrests

Over the past several months, there have been numerous thefts from 
autos parked at trailheads in the park and surrounding area. The 
primary method of entry has been by breaking a window with a rock. The 
thieves have taken only women's purses on almost all occasions, after 
which they would immediately go into nearby Grand Junction and use 
stolen credit cards or purchase items with stolen checks. Ranger Bill 
Row developed a plan for a surveillance operation utilizing rangers 
from nearby parks, with funding assistance from the Intermountain 
Support Office in Denver. Ranger Doug Ekker from Dinosaur NM saw a 
vehicle enter the Devils Kitchen trailhead parking area around 6:30 
p.m. on September 8th. Three men got out and looked into the window of 
a "plant" car, which had a purse on its floor. One of the men threw a 
rock at the car's window, but it bounced off. Another was thrown with 
similar results. The trio then drove away. Row was notified and 
stopped the vehicle; Ekker and city and county officers backed him up. 
They arrested A.L., 33, D.T., 33, and B.M., 
29, all from Grand Junction.  One of them had earlier been 
videotaped using an ATM card stolen from a vehicle in the park. 
Further investigation led to the arrest the next day of T.M., 
20, of Grand Junction, who was also seen on the ATM 
videotape. Numerous charges are pending and the investigation in 
continuing in close cooperation with the U.S. attorney and local 
agencies. (Ron Young, CR, COLM, 9/12)

00-581 - Great Smoky Mountains NP (NC/TN) - Kidnapping Investigation

On the morning of Monday, September 4th, visitors heard a man yelling 
for help from inside the trunk of a parked vehicle. They entered the 
unlocked car and attempted to remove the rear seat to free him. As 
they were doing so, he found his keys underneath him in the trunk and 
passed them to his rescuers. They opened the trunk, helped him out, 
provided food and water, and called 911. The 42-year-old victim told 
rangers that a "homeless" man had approached his car the previous 
Friday afternoon as he was getting onto I-81. He said that the man 
asked him for money and food, then struck him on the side of his face 
with a pipe, knocking him unconscious. When he awoke, he found that he 
was locked in the car's trunk and that it was in motion. He lapsed 
into unconsciousness, later waking up to find that the car was 
stopped. There he remained until discovered on Monday. He was taken by 
ambulance to a hospital for a precautionary exam and was found to be 
in good condition. He said that the only thing stolen from him was his 
cash. The FBI was scheduled to administer a polygraph examination 
yesterday. [John Mattox, SA, GRSM, 9/13]

                  [Additional reports pending....]

FIRE SITUATION

NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS LEVEL - Level IV

CURRENT SITUATION

Seven new large fires were reported; two existing fires were 
contained. Initial attack was moderate throughout the United States.  
Remnants of Tropical Storm Lane will produce some isolated 
thunderstorms in western parts of California, Oregon and Washington.  

Very high to extreme fire indices were reported in Oregon, California, 
Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado, 
Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma

The following resources were committed nationwide as of yesterday 
(changes from yesterday's numbers in parentheses): 98 crews (- 30), 
1,235 overhead (- 232), 217 engines (+ 83), and 71 helicopters (+ 7).

NPS AND NPS-RELATED FIRES

No reports.

OUTLOOK

No fire weather watches or warnings have been issued.

[NICC Incident Management Situation Report, 9/13]

DISCOVERY 2000

The theme of the Discovery 2000 conference yesterday was education. 
The keynote address in the morning was given by poet, dramatist, 
educator and biographer Maya Angelou, author of five biographical 
works, the first of which - "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" - was 
nominated for the National Book Award. 

She began by singing an old spiritual about the worst of times and the 
possibility of seeing light in the darkness, ending it by saying that 
those who work for the NPS are "the rainbow in the cloud" because we 
provide places of relief and relaxation for a harried public. 

Angelou employed poetry and song, drama and humor, parable and 
personal experiences to inspire and move her listeners. She talked 
about courage, which she called the "first virtue," the one that all 
others are based on, saying that it's indispensable to life.

She talked about the dark moments of her own life and about the 
encouragement she received from her mother to read poetry for renewal, 
then quoted passages from 19th century African-American Ann Spencer, 
Edna St. Vincent Millay, and William Shakespeare. She challenged 
listeners to read African-American poetry because it's "rich, 
beautiful, rarely taught, so little cherished, and is credited with 
saving at least one group of people." She also enjoined members of the 
audience to put at least four lines of poetry somewhere in each park, 
and to personally write it, read it and memorize it for its uplifting 
qualities.

Angelou spoke to our responsibility to coming generations, saying that 
our ancestors, no matter where they came from, "have paid for us 
already." "We need to pay for those who are coming," she said.

She also said we should cherish each other's humanity, citing Terence, 
a freed African slave who lived in early Rome: "I am a human being. 
Nothing human can be alien to me."

Angelou closed by again saying that we are all rainbows in the clouds, 
and drew a prolonged and emotional standing ovation from a visibly 
moved audience.

Workshops yesterday focused on topics in education, ranging from 
telling stories about spiritual places to long-distance learning to 
grading the Service on its educational programs. Highlights from a few 
of them follow:

Virtual visits - The session began with an overview of programs that 
permitted students to make "virtual visits" by website and satellite 
transmission to Wrangell-St. Elias and Katmai, and drew, respectively, 
800,000 and 2,000,000 participants from all over the world. The 
balance of the workshop was on the development of programs and on the 
nuts and bolts of transmitting them. The session concluded with a 
discussion of future trends. Most participants felt that "virtual 
visits" will never replace real visits because people still want the 
reality of being in parks, but that they will be very useful assets in 
helping people plan and follow-up on trips to NPS areas.

Education in parks in the future - Dr. Gary Machlis offered advice to 
NPS managers on ways to deal with anticipated changes and their 
impacts on the parks, listing several skills necessary for dealing 
with the future - base decisions on sound theory, have access to a 
broad array of data, and read as voraciously as possible. He said that 
we are caught up in a "war of information and communication" in a 
world that is moving at an increasingly faster pace. He recommended 
that we provide backcountry quality experience in frontcountry areas 
to protect fragile cultural and natural resources, that we plan now 
for older, more diverse, and increasingly international  visitors, and 
that we develop visitor services and educational approaches which 
recognize the blurring of the distinction between parks and 
classrooms.

Distance education - Past Director Jim Ridenour and others talked 
about several evolving distance learning projects that employ the web, 
voice and television conferencing, and traditional paper 
correspondence. The NPS needs to expand such efforts in order to reach 
both employees and the public. Concerns were expressed about the cost 
of the necessary technology and technical expertise. Ridenour 
suggested that the audience consider the sale of products related to 
education and partnering with media outlets to produce programs.

More information on the conference can be found on the web at 
www.nps.gov/discovery2000. To see the daily conference newspaper, 
click on "Daily Newspaper;" for photos, the text of keynote addresses, 
a list of workshops, and reports on other events, click on the daily 
"highlights' listings.

                            *  *  *  *  *

Distribution of the Morning Report is through a mailing list managed 
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address requests pertaining to receipt of the Morning Report to your 
servicing hub coordinator.  The Morning Report is also available on 
the web at http://www.nps.gov/morningreport

Prepared by the Division of Ranger Activities, WASO, with the 
cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.

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