Spotlight on LeChee Youth Intern

NAU Intern Ashlee Austin, and Ketona Reed and Hershal Yazzie, the 2023 LeChee Youth Interns, approve of the arch in Wiregrass Canyon.

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Ketona hones his photography skills en route to Rainbow Bridge, 2024

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Ketona Reed has been a member of a youth partnership program between Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and the local LeChee Chapter House of the Navajo Nation for three years. The LeChee Chapter House hires teens and offers them a variety of placements in the community, such as Glen Canyon, where the youth can gain real world job skills and new experiences. This partnership is also supported by our friends at Glen Canyon Conservancy.

Ketona (second from left) practices this ranger pointing skills with Glen Canyon staff in the Padre Bay backcountry, 2023.

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Ketona chose to work at Glen Canyon each summer from 2022 through 2024. During this time, he has gained extensive knowledge about the natural and cultural resources and the recreational opportunities of this 1.2 million acre park. Glen Canyon staff have enjoyed watching Ketona grow in skills and experience over these years.  He has contributed a lot of work to the park including assisting many visitors and Junior Rangers at Carl Hayden Visitor Center, assisting with native plants restoration at Ferry Swale area, participating in the Juneteenth park cleanup event, writing and taking photos for social media posts, helping install new exhibits at the Glen Canyon Conservancy’s Powell Museum and Archives, and placing Leave Your Mark temporary waysides at trailheads which intend to deter graffiti.  Ketona has also learned about the park by hiking trails, fishing, touring Glen Canyon Dam, and boating to Rainbow Bridge National Monument and the Paso Por Aqui inscription from 1776.  Ketona has been very dependable and responsible and has integrated fully into our Interpretation Team.

Along the River Trail at Lees Ferry.

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Knowing that local youth may become the best stewards of their neighboring public lands, Glen Canyon fully supports this youth program with the Navajo Nation. This program will continue to build advocacy for both Glen Canyon and Rainbow Bridge, its landscapes, wildlife, archaeological treasures as well as other public lands. Ketona has been an outstanding example of how this partnership is effective in furthering the goals of both the park and the Navajo Nation.