Alumni News - Black Hills State University

Outstanding Scholar
Program at Mount
Rushmore.
Olson had planned
on teaching as a career,
but a college visit,
from a park service
ranger helped change
her plans. She got a
degree in tourism,
instead, and went to
work in what she calls,
"the best career in the
world."
Judy Olson
Working in inter
pretation and education services at
Mount Rushmore, she became a
teacher of sorts, she said.
"Interpretation means that we inter
pret the resource. We tell people
about the mountain," Olson said.
As a ranch girl from the Lemmon
area, Olson was raised on family sum
mer vacations to Mount Rushmore.
She has annual snapshots of herself in
front of the memorial, but no real rec
ollection of her first visit to it.
Paperwork is the worst part of her
job, but even that can't dampen her
enthusiasm for what she loves the
most talking with tourists who are
experiencing the memorial for the first
time, or those who are back for a
repeat visit.
"It's a very emotional place
for people," she said. "Even
though Mount
Rushmore doesn't
mean the same thing
to everybody, it
means something to
everyone who sees it.
It creates an
emotion in everyone
that sees it."
Interpreting
Mount Rushmore,
with all its symbol
ism, history and
patriotic meaning, is
a harder task than it
is at some of the more
natural parks, Olson
said, but also a more
fulfilling one.
Photographs and
story reprinted with permission from
the Rapid City Journal.