2013 Freeman Tilden Award Recipients

The Freeman Tilden Awards are the highest interpretation awards presented to a National Park Service individual or team to recognize outstanding contributions to the profession of interpretation. The award was created to inspire and reward creative thinking and original programs and projects in our national parks that result in positive and meaningful impacts for the visitors and the preservation of parks.

We are pleased to congratulate the national and regional recipients of the 2013 Freeman Tilden Awards for Excellence in Interpretation. These recipients’ contributions model excellence, achievement, and innovation in the profession of interpretation and visitor engagement.

Ranger Jane Farmer and her dog Truman Blue.

National Recipient

Jane Farmer

Southwest Region | Natchez Trace Parkway

This project to connect American Indian students to their ancestral homelands along Natchez Trace invited a new generation of American Indian youth to their own stories within Natchez Trace Parkway. Park Ranger Jane Farmer hosted student groups from the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and drafted new five-year Cooperative Agreements to allow tribal students to travel to the Natchez Trace Parkway. Students traveled hundreds of miles to spend one week researching genealogy, exploring their ancestral homeland, and working on educational projects. Social media content, a student documentary, and other projects shared new voices and stories as threads woven into the complex historical tapestry of the park.

The program showcased how educational curriculum turns an experience into more than a field trip and instead serves as a catalyst for connections that last far beyond the initial visit. Students experienced the park through the eyes of their Chickasaw ancestors. They have took hold of the experience and made it their own, and the effects will be felt far and wide. The program serves as a model that can be expanded throughout the National Park System to provide youth from the widest possible backgrounds with opportunities to discover and connect to their own stories found within our national parks. This outstanding program brought together education, youth, partnership, diversity and technology.

2013 Freeman Tilden national and regional award recipients. From left to right: Greg Shine, Frank Barrows, Julia Washburn (Secretary of the Interior), Jane Farmer, Aaron Kaye, and Roy Wood. Tracy Evans not photographed.

Regional Recipients

Roy Wood

Alaska Region | Katmai National Park

Roy Wood, Chief of Interpretation for Katmai National Park & Preserve has been selected as the recipient of the 2013 Alaska Region Freeman Tilden Award for his partnership with the Annenberg Foundation’s explore.org to bring the bears of Brooks Camp to the world through the installation and operation of several webcams.

Greg Shine

Pacific West Region | Fort Vancouver National Historic Site

Through his role at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site and as an adjunct faculty member in Portland State University's Public History Program teaching a course on historic site interpretation, Shine conceived, planned, helped create, and guided to publication the digital eBook Revealing Our Past: A History of Nineteenth Century Vancouver Barracks through 25 objects.

Frank Barrows

Northeast Region | New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park
Frank Barrows has been awarded the Freeman Tilden Award for the Northeast Region, for his work with the Youth Ambassador Program (YAP!). YAP! engages under-served youth in the creation of national park-themed music and videos that are shared through public programming, live performances and social media outreach. YAP! is a partnership program with Third Eye Youth Empowerment, a non-profit organization based in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Working with National Park Service staff and staff at 3rd Eye Youth Empowerment, program participants write and compose songs in which they connect park themes to the issues in their own lives.

Aaron Kaye

Midwest Region | Badlands National Park
Aaron is being honored for his role in developing the park's Astronomy Festival, an annual event held in August of each year.

Tracy Evans

National Capital Region | Monocacy National Battlefield
Tracy created a tangible link to the past by returning Confederate General R. E. Lee's 'Special Orders 191' to the site where they were written 150 years prior. She created special events and interpretive exhibits around the orders.