NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT

To:        All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:      Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date:  Wednesday, April 23, 1997

Broadcast: By 1000 ET

INCIDENTS

96-529 - Mount Rushmore (South Dakota) - Follow-up on Larceny Arrest

On September 10, 1996, rangers arrested W.N., a park concession
employee, for felony larceny from the concessioner.  W.N. pled guilty to the
charge this January.  On April 14th, he was sentenced to two years'
probation, fined $1,000, and ordered to pay $5,248 in restitution to the
concessioner.  W.N. must also pay court costs and $100 to a victim's
assistance fund.  Rangers Andy Fisher and Tim Phillips, assisted by rangers
Denny Ziemann (WICA) and Steve Spanyer (BIBE), investigated the case and made
the arrest.  [Mike Pflaum, CR, MORU, 4/21]

96-692 - Lake Meredith NRA (Texas) - Follow-up on Fatal Boating Accident

The park continues its search for the body of eight-year-old B.B.
in the upper end of Lake Meredith.  Benjamin, his father, R.B., and his
brothers, Ph.B., eleven, and Pa.B., nine, drowned when their 14-foot boat
capsized in high winds on the lake on December 14, 1996.  Yesterday was the
129th day of the search.  Two search dogs from the Dallas area are being
utilized.  An underwater communications system has been acquired which will
add a significant measure of safety and effectiveness to the dive operations
by permitting control of the dive in zero visibility water from the surface. 
A sidescan sonar team has been requested from the Navy, but is not yet
available.  [John Benjamin, Superintendent, LAMR, 4/22]

97-165 - Death Valley NP (California) - Weapons Arrest

R.L. was arrested in Sunset campground for multiple weapons
violations on the evening of April 20th.  R.L. had been seen during the
day in the vicinity of the visitor center and within a private resort.  When
approached in the campground by a deputy and a highway patrol officer, he
immediately tried to gain access to the cab of his pickup truck despite the
officers' orders not to do so.  He was arrested at gunpoint and taken into
custody.  A search of the truck led to the discovery and seizure of a loaded
.45 caliber handgun, a loaded .45/.410 derringer wrapped in a towel on the
front seat, a shortened 10 gauge double barrel shotgun, a bayonet and a
throwing axe.  Notes found in the vehicle referred to "taking them all out." 
R.L. was booked into county jail on state charges, but released the
following day.  A park investigation is underway.  [ACR, DEVA, 4/22]

97-166 - Canyonlands NP (Utah) - Boat Accident; Injury to Concession Employee

A park concession employee and his spouse were injured in a boating accident
on the Colorado River around 1 p.m. on April 19th.  D.M. and K.M.,
operating a Tag-A-Long concession 24 foot jet boat, were heading downstream
to pickup some canoes near the Colorado's confluence with the Green River. 
They were traveling at about 25 mph when the boat's steering failed and it
crashed into a vertical rock wall.  K.M. suffered a broken leg, a
broken ankle and possible spinal injuries; D.D. lost an ear and
suffered lacerations, avulsions and bruises.  They were transported 55 miles
to Moab by another park concessioner who arrived on scene an hour after the
accident had occurred, then were flown to a hospital in Grand Junction. 
Damage to the boat is estimated at $10,000.  It has been removed from the
canyon.  The investigation continues.  [Steve Swanke, CANY, 4/21]

97-167 - Prince William Forest Park (Virginia) - Search; Fatality

The park was notified of a missing person late on the evening of April 19th. 
B.I., 52, had failed to return home from a hike in the park.  B.I.'s
wife also reported that he had coronary artery disease and had undergone
angioplasty only a few days previously.  B.I.'s vehicle was found in a
parking lot about 45 minutes later, and a search was conducted with the
assistance of county police and a state police helicopter.  B.I.'s body was
found on the Turkey Run Ridge trail about 300 yards from Scenic Drive at 2
a.m.  He had been dead for several hours.  [George Liffert, SPR, PRWI, 4/21]

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

No submissions.

OPERATIONAL NOTES

Yount Career Achievement Award - Jim Brady, currently superintendent of
Glacier Bay NP&P, has been selected as a recipient of the Harry Yount Ranger
Lifetime Achievement Award.  Recipients are selected by other rangers in
honor of their overall record of accomplishment and excellence in the ranger
profession.  Although there have been numerous notable achievements during
Brady's 36-year career in the NPS, his most significant accomplishment was
his work in shepherding Ranger Careers through DOI and the Congress while
serving as chief of the Ranger Activities Division in WASO.  The program,
says Brady, "reinvented the ranger career, making it clearly a resource-based
profession, and redefined, in contemporary terms, the ranger as an ambassador
and educator and a protector of public resources."  Job responsibilities were
retooled for some 4,000 park rangers, pay was brought in line with the new
jobs, and management policies were rewritten.  He will receive the award this
week in a National Park Week ceremony in Washington, D.C.  [John Quinley,
PIO, ARO]

MEMORANDA

No submissions.

EXCHANGE

No submissions.

OBSERVATIONS

This section, which appears intermittently in the Morning Report, contains
observations regarding the National Park Service, the System and the several
professions of park employees.  

"We have nowhere to live except in nature.  Ruin that which is natural and we
will soon lose entire track of ourselves.  Lose contact with that which is
wild and we fall out of touch with all that this animal we are is able to
understand as actual."

                                 Author William Kittredge in "Testimony:
                                 Writers of the West Speak On Behalf of
                                 Utah Wilderness", compiled by Stephen
                                 Trimble and Terry Tempest Williams, 1996

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

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