Volunteer Story: Lisa Ferguson

A park volunteer in a khaki uniform shirt, a green sweater, and glasses stands with her hands in her pockets by a barbed-wire fence. Within the fence is a bright green, grassy pasture with two brown horses grazing in the background. Beyond them is the iconic Roark Bluff, a sheer wall of sandstone. NPS

If you've camped at Steel Creek during the 2019-2022 spring seasons, you've likely gotten to meet our volunteer campground host, Lisa Ferguson. Maybe you've even gotten to meet her dogs, Zelda and Luke, during their many daily walks!

Lisa was selected as the 2020 National Park Service Regions 3, 4 and 5 (Midwest) Hartzog Volunteer of the Year. The award recognizes her dedication to visitor services and campground management at Buffalo National River. The George and Helen Hartzog Awards for Outstanding Volunteer Service recognize the exemplary contributions of volunteers across the National Park System.

As the volunteer campground host at Steel Creek Campground, Lisa served as a front-line representative of the National Park Service for thousands of visitors, many of whom had never been to a national park unit before. Always courteous and service-oriented, Lisa helped visitors find their way to safe and appropriate recreational opportunities at Buffalo National River. She also acquainted new public land users with the rules of the river and explained why those rules exist. She resolved numerous visitor conflicts, prevented search and rescue incidents, promoted order and organization in an excessively busy area, and ensured that visitors knew where to find help if they needed it.

When Lisa is on duty, our staff knows that Steel Creek Campground is in good hands. For example, Lisa monitored and reported a complete water system outage on one of the busiest weekends of the year at Steel Creek Campground in 2020. She communicated this outage to the rural water department and notified every camper of what to expect while maintenance was happening. Campers were very understanding of the situation, and because of Lisa’s speedy report, the issue was fixed in a matter of hours…in the middle of the weekend.

Another impressive and impactful task that Lisa took upon herself was to develop a campfire safety campaign at Steel Creek Campground. Lisa noticed that campers were dumping out the ice from their coolers in the middle of their campsites yet leaving their campfires burning when they vacated at the end of the weekend. Based on that observation, Lisa began advising campers to dump their ice on the campfire to take care of two problems at once. She has even worked with our park’s social media team to get the message out on a broader scale to prospective visitors.

Lisa is a phenomenal ambassador for the National Park Service, and she upholds this agency’s core values in every interaction with visitors, park partners, and NPS staff. We are proud to know and work alongside Lisa Ferguson, and out of all the parks she could have chosen to serve, we are grateful that she chose Buffalo National River. Her volunteer service has made an exceptional impact here.

Thank you, Lisa, for your continued service to Buffalo National River, its staff, and its visitors. We're lucky to have you on our team!

To learn more about volunteering at Buffalo National River, visit https://www.nps.gov/buff/getinvolved/volunteer.htm #NationalParkWeek #FindYourPark #EncuentraTuParque #RecreateResponsibly #NPSVolunteer

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