News Release

Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield announces awards for Employee and Team of the Year for 2019

Brian Beeson (forklift) and other employees unload reproduction artillery carriages

Charles Dischinger

News Release Date: April 21, 2020

Contact: Kristine Abbey, 417-732-2622 x231

Republic, Mo. – Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield paid tribute recently to employees who did outstanding work in Fiscal Year 2019, a time when the park began one of the largest facilities management projects in its history. Brian Beeson, a maintenance employee, was named 2019 Employee of the Year. For the Team of the Year award, the park honored all park employees as a group for the many key projects employees collaborated on in 2019.

Employees met online for a virtual awards ceremony as the park currently is closed to help protect the public, employees, and volunteers from the risk of COVID-19. While law enforcement, maintenance, and members of the management team continue to work on site, other employees are teleworking as the park moves forward with key phases of the renovation of the visitor center and museum collection displays.  

As Employee of the Year, Beeson worked across division lines to help colleagues, volunteers, and visitors. Co-workers who nominated him said, “Brian continually goes out of his way to help any person in this park … He makes sure all aspects of this park are in the best working order possible and that all divisions, visitors, and volunteers needs are met.” Beeson also was part of the team that helped pack and move more than 30 pallets of materials including more than 15,000 library volumes, periodicals, and microfilm from the park library to secure storage before major construction began on the visitor center in November. Other nominees for Employee of the year included Jeff Patrick, museum curator; Jordan Foster, law enforcement ranger; and Shawn Pearce, Facilities Manager.

Nominees for Team of the Year

• Maintenance Division: These employees completed a number of special projects in addition to their daily work including packing and moving the library and museum collections, assisting with the cannon rehabilitation project, and supporting special programs like the Naturalization Ceremony, Luminary, Anniversary Program, Park Day, Ray House Jamboree, Spring Fling, Moon Light Tour, and cannon firing demonstrations. Maintenance division members are Shawn Pearce, Kevin Broz, Brian Beeson, Daryl Cantrell, Jeff Cunningham, Jeremiah May, and Joe Rouse.
• Library Pack and Move Team: This cross-divisional group help safely shepherd the park’s library collection to storage. The nomination form states, “This a great example of employees from different divisions recognizing that the library is an important park resource, and one that needed to be carefully boxed, transported and stored in order to preserve it for future generations.” Employees and volunteers involved include Shawn Pearce, Gary Sullivan, Brian Beeson, Jeff Cunningham, Alan Chilton, Kevin Broz, Jeff Patrick, Bill Nash, Darren Vermillion, Rusty Wolber, Jordan Foster, and others.
• Internet Upgrade Team: This group successfully renewed an agreement for “dark fiber,” to provide dramatically improved network and phone connectivity from the visitor center to the park administrative building and the new offices of the inventory and monitoring team. The project improved infrastructure for online training, online reporting, teleconferencing, IP phones, and security monitoring. Employees who assisted included Ted Hillmer, Shawn Pearce, Michelle Lee, Gary Sullivan, as well as the Denver Service Center contracting officer, and Midwest Regional Office Right of Way Specialist, and IT staff from the regional office.
• The “Brown Water Navy” Team: Three employees performed original research on photographs from the park’s museum collection. Jeff Patrick, museum curator, Alan Chilton, museum technician, and Larry Toll, seasonal ranger, co-wrote and published an article, “Dr. George Holmes Bixby: Photographer on the Western Rivers,” in the Fall 2019 issue of Civil War Navy magazine. The team’s research showed that Dr. Bixby – Chief Medical Officer aboard the Navy’s first hospital ship, the USS Red Rover – was the wartime photographer of many previously unattributed photographs of Mississippi Squadron gunboats.
• The “Rec Fee” Team: Shawn Pearce, Jordan Foster, Connie Langum, Michelle Lee, Gary Sullivan, Billie Aschwege, and Rob Bjelland stepped up to help the park meet recreational fee deadlines and the obligation rate. This complex project involved formulating a recreation fee plan, and developing and executing contracts to meet unusually high requirements in 2019. Recreation fees come from park passes sold at the visitor center, and a portion of these fees must be used for “deferred maintenance” projects. The Wilson’s Creek Rec Fee team met the requirement with the park’s recent cannon rehabilitation project, and artwork being designed now for new wayside exhibits to be installed soon on the tour road.

Administered by the National Park Service, Wilson's Creek National Battlefield preserves the site of the first major battle of the Civil War in the West. The Confederate victory on August 10, 1861, focused greater national attention on the war in Missouri, leading to greater federal military action.

Wilson’s Creek Administrative Office is located 10 miles southwest of Springfield, Missouri at 5242 S. State Hwy ZZ, Republic, Missouri 65738.