Fall & Winter 2012: Volume 33, Numbers 3 & 4 - Missouri Prairie ...

DNR FILE
PRAIRIE STATE PARK
JUSTIN JOHNSON
Prairie Jubilee is the park’s premier event, first held in 1991 (top photo) and hosted by the
park most recently on September 29, 2012. The biennial event provides park guests with an
in-depth prairie experience with natural history booths and activities, history re-enactors,
guided prairie hikes, bison burgers, music, and more.
Welcoming Park Guests
When it comes to interpreting such a
complex ecosystem to guests, park staff
members foster excitement and true
appreciation for the intricate functions
of prairie by developing programming
that integrates both natural history and
human culture. In November of 1987,
the park naturalist held the park’s first
Prairie Day for 7 th and 8 th grade students
from Liberal Middle School. Today,
those same students would be around
39 years old with school-aged children.
Occasionally adults bring their children
to the park and tell of how they came
to the park when they were kids. Often
this generates great memories of old and
questions of whether we still do this or
that program.
Interpretation was stepped up to
a whole new level in 1988 when the
visitor center was built in a valley with
large windows providing an eastern view
of the prairie through which an early
morning guest can watch the sun rise.
The visitor center has provided a focal
point where guests gather information to
start them on their exploration, school
groups huddle around a bison robe and
listen to Native American prairie stories,
and many special events draw in people
from miles around.
The park’s premier event is the
biannual Prairie Jubilee first held in
1991 and most recently this year on
September 29. In 2007, we introduced
the park’s electronic newsletter, the
Tallgrass Tribune, which was awarded
the 2008 Outstanding Interpretive Site
Publication Award by the National
Association for Interpretation Region
6. Most recently, the park has started
its own Facebook page, which has 337
“likes” and counting.
After more than 30 years of hard
work, Prairie State Park is a jewel in
the state park system, providing 45,000
guests a year with a prairie experience
in a nearly 4,000-acre landscape. It is
thanks to prairie advocates that the
park came into being, and it is up to
present and future prairie supporters to
ensure that remnants of original prairie
landscapes always remains available to
Missourians.
Brian Miller is natural resource steward at
Prairie State Park, where he has overseen
park operations since 2003.
To learn more about Prairie State Park, call 417-843-6711, visit www.mostateparks.com, or “Like” the park’s
Facebook Page. If you would like to receive the park’s electronic newsletter, the Tallgrass Tribune, send an e-mail
message to prairie.state.park@dnr.mo.gov.
Vol. 33 Nos. 3 & 4 Missouri Prairie Journal 21