Sarah Craighead

Quick Facts

Significance:

First woman to be superintendent of DEVA in 2010

Date of Birth:

~1957

Sarah Craighead is the daughter of Jean Craighead of Cave City and grew up in Kentucky with Mammoth Caves National Park essentially in her backyard. Her great-great-grandparents owned a farm directly adjacent to what is now MACA and she used to visit the park frequently with her family. Visiting MACA was a relatively normal part of her life growing up, taking trips for school, scouting, and church trips, even having Sunday dinners in the park.

While earning a degree in biology at Transylvania University, Craighead began working as a seasonal employee for MACA in 1978. Her early experiences working in the park got her hooked and led to a long, continuing career in the National Park Service. Following her seasonal work at MACA, Craighead said she worked a myriad of other jobs with the NPS; she worked campgrounds, gave tours of Independence Hall and the Grand Canyon, worked as volunteer coordinator, drafted trail plans, and other miscellaneous jobs along the way before becoming Superintendent. She worked at Acadia NP, Carlsbad Caverns NP, Grand Canyon NP, Manassas National Battlefield Park, Independence National Historical Park, and Mesa Verde NP before becoming a superintendent.

Her first appointment as superintendent began in 1997 with the founding and building of the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site in Oklahoma; she undertook this new venture while balancing a long distance marriage to Glacier National Park superintendent Rick Shireman. This first appointment was extremely difficult, as she was not only establishing a new park for the NPS, but she had to find a way to reconcile the historical learning possible at the site and the Cheyenne people’s calls for it to be considered a sacred site where George Custer murdered an entire Cheyenne village in 1868. In 2002, Craighead moved on from this project, handing the torch to Wendy Lauritzen. From there, Craighead became the superintendent for Saguaro National Park until 2009.

Sarah Craighead’s career as DEVA superintendent began in November 2009, amid negotiations to obtain Ryan Camp from Rio Tinto Minerals. During her tenure, the newly remodeled Furnace Creek Visitor Center opened and she facilitated the official opening ceremonies. Craighead then moved back to MACA to become the superintendent from 2012 through 2017, before moving on to be the Southeast Regional Director.