Tent of Many Voices: 09240604

h oh spe he all for for for thank you you may be seated and and I'm declaring this an inside zone so you may also uncover good evening and welcome to the T of many voices of of the core of Discovery 2 200 years to the Future I'm Steve Adams superintendent of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail again welcome welome uh we have a number of speakers that I'll introduce to you in a little while but I want to say first that uh you heard a couple of different songs uh one for the presentation of the flags and another song that honors all of the the partners that are involved in this by Centennial effort so if we could have a big round of applause for the singers and drummers it's time to take a deep breath let this settle in a little bit this tent the tent of many voices so aptly named by former superintendent of Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Gerard Baker Gerard has uh certainly nailed that name and I want to tell you a little bit about what's going to happen with this exhibit uh in a couple of days it's going to go down to hascal Indian na Nations University it will find its uh home there there and and we hope they get a lot of good use out of it one of the things I'd like to point out is that over time uh we tend to look at these bits of viny in metal and lights and electronics and such as something more than what they are and that's okay but what I would like to give you a little bit of context for some of the presentations that will occur is that all of you collectively have transcended these bits and pieces and the tent excuse me tent of many voices is now in our hearts so it's going to find a good home uh what we have asked our speakers to talk about tonight is the value meaning and significance of this the core of Discovery to the organization that they represent to the bicentennial and to the country and first I want to start with Kevin chryler who is our Core 2 field manager I'll try to make it through this as as I thought over the last week um trying to figure out as I've thought about what um core Discovery 2 has meant Steve made a good point that these pieces of vinyl this tent that's not core Discovery too everyone here this evening it's core of Discovery too this tent has simply been the place where we've had our family reunion if you will some of us have discovered new family and some have discovered family that we forgot we had our federal agency partners we've learned to work better with them thank you our Native American brothers and sisters that we over the last couple of hundred years sort of forgot about and marginalized we have rediscovered you all and it's good to find our brothers and sisters and our cousins and it's good that we had a chance to meet and talk we talked a lot in this tent we talked a lot outside the tent um one of the biggest things at cor of Discovery to was is an opportunity to talk an opportunity to listen as um is said in our report to the president um some of those conversations were hard to talk about and some of them were hard for us as audience to hear but they were all worth it and I think think that we've done a good thing here and I thank you all for your help in making that happen nobody told you it' be easy Kevin before I introduce our next speaker I want to recognize superintendent Peggy Odell from Jefferson National Expansion Memorial thank you Peggy for being such a great host for us here and for sharing with us our representative from the Bureau of Land Management Mr dick fitler oh boy man what a ride it's been holy cow and I thought I was going to have a post iium so I could hide these notes so bear with me as you read the Lewis and Clark journals from 200 years ago you will see the evolution of a closely knit team as the core Discovery worked the way up the lower Missouri River by the time the Expedition reached the Mandan villages in the spring of 1805 there was a great cohesiveness that bound every individual to the whole when the Expedition returned to the Mandan villages in 1806 that word team didn't quite work anymore Captain Clark had offered to raise birdwoman and sharbono children it seemed to me a more appropriate term at that point would be family so it has been for core Discovery 2 200 years later and the timeline is remarkable for myself as we wrapped up the uh circle of culture signature vent Bismark North Dakota on a cold day in h the fall of of 2004 I really felt like those barriers that sometimes we superficially imposed between agencies and people were crumbling away and by the spring of 2005 as we worked our way up the upper Missouri that River washed all that away and we really did become a team regardless of agencies regardless of background we really kind of clicked and it was this last year as we worked our way back to St Louis that team didn't work anymore it really was a family and I'll carry you all in my hearts for the rest of my life so as with many American families we're about to spread ourselves across this great nation as we each seek A New Path but we take with us the knowledge of how it can be between agencies communities organizations and individuals and for myself I'll never forget that and I want to speak kind of to my agency brothers and sisters at this point for folks like myself that are getting kind gray and maybe a little thin on top it's our responsibility to guide our agencies and organizations on the path that will perpetuate this kind of cooperation and collaboration for the younger folks that are just starting their careers I ask you when you hear somebody of my age saying it can't be done to ask why not you've seen it you know how it works you know it can be done and you're our future so carry that with you and we'll all be better off for it and my mind is going blank I look at these faces and all I want to do is just hit the trail again and you know as we think about these obligations either for the older ones of us to try to guide our agencies on the right path and for the future and the younger folks that are now entering the workforce as they try to do what they can to shape our future we want to keep in mind that the citizens of this country have a right to expect that of us we are after all your servants so as we leave as we leave this tenam many voices tonight we will each start Down A New Path never forget that that new path is linked to the Lewis and Clark Trail for that is the nature of trails Trails connect places they connect people and they connect the past to the Future and so doing they make us better individuals and a stronger country I made it take those deep breaths uh our next speaker before I I tell you who he is you may have noticed that there aren't too many animals wandering around here and that's because Steve Morehouse from the Bureau of Reclamation has cooked them up and you've been eating them ladies and gentlemen Steve moouse the Bureau of Reclamation I have to take a minute to look out there and then I won't be nervous because I'll see that they're all my friends people that I've met along the trail hello again welcome one last time here in the tent the commissioner for the Bureau of Reclamation the agency that I work for John Keys sent me out to partner with the core of Discovery to I was supposed to come and work alongside them interpret and learn and partner up with the core Discovery 2 and ended up partnering up with everybody I met along the trail this is the end of my federal career and I couldn't think of a better way to to end it this was a dream of mine I moved to Montana in 1980 so I could live on the Lewis and Clark Trail and I've been learning the story and I'm still learning and it's the Partnerships and the friendships that I've made with everybody along the way that have kept me going and the biggest partner is here with me tonight and that's my wife and my son and my daughter and my future daughter-in-law thank you thank you for all of the things that you have taught me along the way and I will continue to learn and I realize that what I've learned it's not mine to keep I promise you that I will pass it on to the next Generation thank you and if you've ever watched Steve around a bunch of little kids you know that he is passing that on thank you Steve from the US Forest Service a person who walks more miles standing still then I can walk in a day actually going somewhere Margaret Gorski thank you Steve those of you who have gotten to know me know me I'm uh better at stirring this stir in the pot during bureaucratic meetings than I am uh speeches in front of all of you fine folks and I'm honored uh and privilege to have been asked to say a few words uh about how uh this Bicentennial has meant and the cour to has meant to to me personally as well as to the forest service and and uh I'm afraid I'm who whoever gave Kevin that Kleenex is going to have to give me some before I can get through this but uh when uh Jefferson asked Lewis to uh go up the river and see what he could find I'm sure he didn't know what he was getting into and in 1998 when uh my boss came to me and asked me to um head up the forest Services involvement in the bicentennial I certainly didn't know what I was getting into when I said H that sounds like an interesting assignment and um really in hindsight uh my journey uh both personal and professional began even earlier than that uh with an experience that I want to share with you uh I was standing at the top of or the highest place on the Louis and Clark Trail uh there on the Lo trail and I was in a place that was that's a sacred place to the naspers tribe and I was new to Idaho uh I had just recently arrived there from uh uh California and I was learning about that country and I was standing at that height uh in an Outer Circle uh in and around uh a circle of uh nesper elders and they were having a smoking ceremony with the forest service we were uh trying to uh build relationships and rebuild relationships with the nesp tribe and I was standing there listening to the to the words from the tribal elders and that was my first lesson about what it means to speak from your heart about what the land means to you and as a steward of a national forest and public land it was a lesson that I have taken with me um the rest of my career because I heard these Elders speak from their heart about how how important U the natural land is uh to our spirit as a people and that um experience about standing there looking over those mountains that were such a challenge to Lewis and Clark and seeing them through through other eyes other people's eyes uh and they were speaking from their heart and so that was a lesson that that really I have carried with me and it um guided my uh basically my experience and leadership in trying to uh participate in the bicentennial uh the forest service really did uh what we could and and made a great effort of of looking at that land and trying to protect the spiritual meaning of it uh and so we U had a great team uh one of which Katie bump is in the back those of you who knew her up at lemi pass she put her heart and her soul into protecting lemi pass Katie will you stand up for me please and she is one of uh many of my team that really uh just uh poured their heart in so out into uh doing what they can to protect the trail uh and then we also tried to provide some speakers to to court to is Marlene Rivero in the audience she was here earlier where's Marlene marleene uh did a great job portraying uh Rose York uh speaking from her heart and giving a Viewpoint of what it might have been like to be uh a a a slave and a mother to York so just a few of the folks that I wanted to acknowledge but the the uh the importance of Core 2 which is what another thing I was asked to say something about is that Core 2 really was a uh and I appreciate it's really not the stuff in here uh it really was a catalyst and it was a catalyst for every community that it went through it was a catalyst to bring people together uh and it was a catalyst to allow communities to be Pro to celebrate their Spirit of their community and that really uh those of you in the Park Service who brought cor to to town should be very proud of what you did uh in those communities so I I think these guys need a huge uh Round of Applause because of what they brought to communities across the country and the last thought I I want to leave with you is that when I travel around the Trail uh people ask me uh about um well well now the bicentennial is over what are you going to do um well it's an easy one for me to to say is that well the bicentennial is over but the trail is not going anywhere uh and that's the beauty of uh public lands being a public land servant so there there is still