Grass slicing in inhabitant parks to resume after reserve retraining

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June 1st , 2012 10:14 am

By The Associated Press

GATLINBURG (AP) — Grass-cutting crews can get behind to work in a Great Smoky Mountains National Park after retraining in a arise of a deadly mowing incident.

Blue Ridge Parkway workman Dana Bruce was killed May 7 in North Carolina when a roving mower he was regulating tumbled down a 140-foot embankment. The National Park Service halted all weed mowing a week after until workers could be retrained about reserve issues.

According to The Mountain Press, Smokies orator Bob Miller pronounced a training has been finished and a reserve primer drafted, definition park workers will shortly be means to resume mowing roadsides and around caller areas.

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‘Voice of the Smokies’ retiring – WBIR

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The “Voice of the Smokies” celebrated the end of his remarkable career Thursday.

Public affairs officer for the Smoky Mountains National Park Bob Miller will retire Saturday after nearly 40 years of federal service.

Friends, family and co-workers gathered at the Twin Creeks Pavilion in Gatlinburg to celebrate his retirement.

Miller moved to the Smokies in 1989 and served as the fundraising coordinator for the park, working alongside the Friends of the Smokies.

He says he is looking forward to retirement.

“It’s been a really interesting place to work for the day-to-day activity. I won’t missing coming in the middle of the winter and driving through thte snow to get to the office 40 hours a week, so I’ll have the freedom to travel to other national parks.”

Miller helped raise over $37 million for the park.

‘Voice of a Smokies’ timid – WBIR

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The “Voice of a Smokies” distinguished a finish of his conspicuous career Thursday.

Public affairs officer for a Smoky Mountains National Park Bob Miller will retire Saturday after scarcely 40 years of sovereign service.

Friends, family and co-workers collected during a Twin Creeks Pavilion in Gatlinburg to applaud his retirement.

Miller changed to a Smokies in 1989 and served as a fundraising coordinator for a park, operative alongside a Friends of a Smokies.

He says he is looking brazen to retirement.

“It’s been a unequivocally engaging place to work for a day-to-day activity. we won’t blank entrance in a center of a winter and pushing by thte sleet to get to a bureau 40 hours a week, so I’ll have a leisure to transport to other inhabitant parks.”

Miller helped lift over $37 million for a park.

Grass slicing to resume after reserve retraining

GATLINBURG, Tenn. (AP) — Grass-cutting crews can get behind to work in a Great Smoky Mountains National Park after retraining in a arise of a deadly mowing incident.

Blue Ridge Parkway workman Dana Bruce was killed May 7 in North Carolina when a roving mower he was regulating tumbled down a 140-foot embankment. The National Park Service halted all weed mowing a week after until workers could be retrained about reserve issues.

According to The Mountain Press (http://bit.ly/L57b0G ), Smokies orator Bob Miller pronounced a training has been finished and a reserve primer drafted, definition park workers will shortly be means to resume mowing roadsides and around caller areas.

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Information from: The Mountain Press, http://www.themountainpress.com

Grass is growing issue in Smokies

NATIONAL PARK — Motorists who drove through the Great Smoky Mountains over the Memorial Day weekend and thought the typically well-kept national park seemed a bit shaggy may have been right.

For more than three weeks crews there have been forbidden from tending to the regular mowing duties that keep the roadsides and lawns around visitor areas manageable after a fatal accident on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. With a retraining process for all those employees now completed and a safety manual drafted, park officials were optimistic Tuesday the work may be allowed to restart today or tomorrow.

Such efforts were halted by the National Park Service at all its locations since May 14, one week after a riding mower carrying 63-year-old Dana Bruce tumbled off a 140-foot embankment on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Bruce was killed in the accident and, as a precaution, officials mandated actions be taken at all the sites to prevent similar incidents, Great Smoky Mountains spokesman Bob Miller said Tuesday.

For more details and the rest of the story, see The Mountain Press, on sale throughout the county or by subscription to your home.

Bob Miller, "voice of the Smokies," retires

Photo by J. Miles Cary // Buy this photo

Soon-to-retire Great Smoky Mountains National Park spokesman Bob Miller presents a PowerPoint program to a group of Sevier County business leaders earlier this month at Sugarlands Visitor Center. Miller’s duties included 15 years working public information at wildfire and hurricane sites as a member of the National Park Service’s incident management team. (J. Miles Cary/News Sentinel)

Bob Miller first visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1984 while on vacation. Until then, his only exposure to mountains was viewing the snow-capped peaks of Switzerland, which he’d seen while serving in the Army during the Vietnam War.

At first, the relatively modest scale of the Southern Appalachians left Miller unimpressed. Over time, however, he began to appreciate that the park’s calling card — its rich biodiversity and its equally rich human history stretching from the Cherokees to the Scotch-Irish pioneers.

“I wasn’t immediately enthralled with the Smokies,” Miller said. “It took me awhile to realize that the beauty of this place lies in the details.”

Technically, Miller’s job title is “management assistant” for Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but to members of the media and local community leaders, he’s the Voice of the Smokies.

On June 1, Miller retires as park spokesman after 23 years. During his career he served under five superintendents: Randy Pope, Phil Francis, Karen Wade, Mike Tollefson, and his current boss, Dale Ditmanson.

“Bob’s level of skill and integrity is perhaps unmatched anywhere in the park system,” Ditmanson said. “People call this park to know what’s going on; and, with Bob, they know they’re going to get a straight answer.

“He can talk about anything,” Ditmanson said. “It’s going to take awhile for people to stop calling this office asking for Bob Miller.”

Miller, 61, grew up in Ironwood, Mich., a mining town about 18 miles south of Lake Superior. In 1974, after serving in the Army, he landed a temporary post with the National Park Service’s public affairs office of special events in Washington D.C. He was 25, and his duties included organizing the cherry blossom festivities and lighting the White House Christmas tree.

“I was a flunkie running errands, but Washington was a vibrant place to live — a very green and livable city at the time,” Miller recalled.

For the next 12 years Miller worked a variety of administrative and interpretive jobs for the National Park Service in Washington D.C. He managed Ford’s Theatre, where President Lincoln was assassinated, and he gained valuable experience managing crowds for special events such as the American Folklife Festival held on the National Mall.

In 1986 Miller moved to Maine to work at Acadia National Park. Three years later he was ready for a change. In November 1989, just around Thanksgiving, he and his wife, Elaine, moved to the Smokies.

Miller had to hit the ground running. The park’s hog eradication program was in full swing, and an experimental reintroduction of red wolves was pending. Invasive-exotic plants were being targeted as a serious threat, and the park was due to make a decision on the proposed “Road to Nowhere” — a controversial road building project on the north shore of Fontana Lake — and the future of the Elkmont cabins.

As the park’s new public information officer, it was Miller’s job to educate the public and handle the information flow. In addition, he spent 15 years working public information at wildfire and hurricane sites as a member of the National Park Service’s incident management team.

“Sometimes it’s a day-to-day matter of dealing with whatever emergencies pop up, like lost hikers and car crashes,” Miller said. “What I liked about the job was it was always changing. There were always new issues coming up the road.”

Miller said his best day on the job was in the winter of 2001 when 25 elk from Land Between the Lakes were released into a holding pen in Cataloochee Valley.

The worst day, he said, was June 21, 1998, the day park ranger Joe Kolodski was shot and killed while responding to a report of a man with a rifle threatening visitors on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Kolodski, 36, left behind a wife and three children. Following the tragedy, Miller was the point man at news conferences, and he helped organize Kolodski’s funeral as well as the parade held in his honor.

“That was the kind of successful event you hope you never have to have,” Miller said.

Last winter the park lost Nancy Gray — Miller’s colleague in public affairs — to retirement after 22 years. The park has since hired Molly Schroer, who has assumed the duties previously performed by Gray, as well as Debbie Huskey, the assistant to the superintendent, who passed away last July following a long battle with cancer.

Park officials said they’re advertising government wide, not just within the National Park Service, to fill Miller’s position.

Miller’s wife, Elaine, works for Leadership Sevierville and recently served as the fundraising and development director for a faith-based clinic in Sevierville that specializes in helping the uninsured. His 27-year-old daughter, Caitlin, is an interpreter at the Sugarlands Visitor Center. She’s married to David Worth, a seasonal ranger with the Smokies who holds the speed record for running the 72-mile section of Appalachian Trail through the park.

Miller said he’ll stick around after retirement and hopefully do more fishing.

“My wife and I are really good at planning and taking vacations,” he said.

One thing Miller said he won’t miss is the phone ringing at 4:30 in the morning with news of a lost hiker or an automobile accident on the Newfound Gap Road.

“The thing I like most about the National Park Service is the people,” Miller said. “Whether they’re cleaning out culverts or hunting hogs, everyone is talented and dedicated. It’s pretty easy to stay enthusiastic when you work with people like that.”

Smokies visits adult 8 percent in April

GATLINBURG — Visits were adult 8 percent to a Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Apr 2012, compared with Apr 2011.

Year-to-date visitation is adult by 14.9 percent — or 257,000 some-more people than final Jan-April, according to a Smokies spokesman.

All of a 3 categorical entrances were adult this April: Gatlinburg by 3.9 percent, Townsend by 9.2 percent, and Cherokee by 2.8 percent.

The 13 superficial entrances were adult 18 percent over Apr 2011.

Local tourism officials have speculated that a light uptick in a economy and restrained direct for family getaways might be pushing a boost in visits this year — along with good weather, pronounced park orator Bob Miller.

More sum as they rise online and in Tuesday’s News Sentinel.

Lost in the Smokies

Rough terrain and thick vegetation are just some of the hurdles search crews in the Smoky Mountains must overcome when they are looking for lost park visitors. Park spokesman Bob Miller says there is a handful of unsolved cases where hikers just vanished in plain sight. “In terms of the missing and never found, we kinda fall back on the big three.” The big three all vanished during the day, from different locations, and in different decades.

Six year old Dennis Martin playing with friends at his family’s campsite in 1969. 16 year old Trenny Gibson was last seen on a field trip with her friends in 1976, And 51 year old Polly Melton vanished while hiking a popular trail with friends in 1981. In each case, dozens of searchers combed acres of the park for several days. And in the end, nothing but speculation as to what might have happened.

“I think there’s a distinct possibility those last two are not in the park. They were in an area where leaving would be easy. Dennis Martin is probably still out there” says Miller.

Park officials have always thought that Gibson and Melton were either forced from the park or left on their own. If true, that leaves a six year old boy as the only lost soul still believed to be in the park, unintentionally. The unknown whereabouts of the big three is certainly the exception and not the rule in the Smokies. But when it comes to deliberate disappearances, that’s a whole different story.

“We average about six suicides a year here. Typically, they are in front country areas and in a vehicle,” says Miller. Just a few weeks ago, crews searched for two missing persons at the same time, both believed to have taken their own lives. Searchers never found either man. “If it is clearly someone’s intent to commit suicide and not be found, we are not going to put a lot of searchers at risk for a long period of time.”

Whether the disappearances are intentional, or sinister, Smoky Mountain searchers know there are some secrets the mountains may never reveal. A reason for vanishing, buried beneath the beauty of the nations most popular park.

3 blank cases still nonplus Tenn. park officials

Six-year-old Dennis Martin left while personification during his family’s campsite in 1969. In 1976, 16-year-old Trennie Gibson was final seen on a margin outing with her friends. Polly Melton, who was 51, left from a renouned hiking route in 1981.

In all of a cases, searchers combed miles of trails, looking for clues, though came adult empty.

Park orator Bob Miller says it’s expected a lady and a teen were possibly taken out of a park or left willingly. Officials consider a immature child never left.

Other cases have hapless endings, though infrequently intentionally.

“We normal about 6 suicides a year here,” pronounced Bob Miller, longtime park spokesman. “Typically, they are in front nation areas and in a vehicle.”

On Mar 26, rangers called off coexisting searches for dual group whose cars were found abandoned.

Up to 60 people per day had been looking for a week for Derek Leuking, 24, of Blount County when a automobile belonging to 23-year-old Michael Giovanni Cocchini of Nashville was discovered.

No snippet of possibly has been found and park officials contend it’s misleading what became of them.

Just over 9 million people visited a 500,000-acre park on a Tennessee-North Carolina limit in 2011.

3 missing cases still puzzle Tennessee park officials

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May 3rd , 2012 11:02 am

By The Associated Press

GATLINBURG (AP) — Officials at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park deal with lost visitors every year and most all of them are found.

Three missing person incidents, however, still are unsolved and are known internally as “the big three.”

WVLT-TV reported there are still puzzles around the disappearances of two children and one adult in different parts of the Smokies in different decades.

Six-year-old Dennis Martin disappeared while playing at his family’s campsite in 1969. In 1976, 16-year-old Trennie Gibson was last seen on a field trip with her friends. Polly Melton, who was 51, disappeared from a popular hiking trail in 1981.

In all of the cases, searchers combed miles of trails, looking for clues, but came up empty.

Park spokesman Bob Miller says it’s likely the woman and the teen were either taken out of the park or left willingly. Officials think the young boy never left.

Other cases have unfortunate endings, but sometimes intentionally.

“We average about six suicides a year here,” said Bob Miller, longtime park spokesman. “Typically, they are in front country areas and in a vehicle.”

On March 26, rangers called off simultaneous searches for two men whose cars were found abandoned.

Up to 60 people per day had been looking for a week for Derek Leuking, 24, of Blount County, when the car belonging to 23-year-old Michael Giovanni Cocchini of Nashville was discovered.

No trace of either has been found and park officials say it’s unclear what became of them.

Just over 9 million people visited the 500,000-acre park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border in 2011.

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