Policing the Parkway

by Nick Ianniello

Carved in the wild and pristine ridgelines of Virginia and North Carolina are 469 miles of asphalt cared for by real-life Lone Rangers. The park rangers of the Blue Ridge Parkway patrol this beautiful and historic stretch of pavement to enforce the law and keep visitors safe year round, all without uttering a single “Hi-o Silver.” No one knows this better than 80-year-old former Blue Ridge Parkway Ranger Clifford Pendry.

Pendry watched the Blue Ridge Parkway’s construction as a child and spent 30 years working for the National Park Service as a ranger on the Highlands District of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which stretches from the Virginia state line south to the Linn Cove Viaduct near Grandfather Mountain.

“When I was a little boy, I’d go down and sit on the side of the road after they got it built.” Pendry said. “I’d see those park rangers coming by and I thought, hmmm…if I ever grow up, I’d like to be a park ranger.”

Pendry began his work for the Parkway by spending two years in the maintenance division. In January of 1950, a position in the ranger division opened up and Pendry jumped at the opportunity.

“My first job was as a park warden, which is basically the same thing as a park ranger with less pay,” Pendry said.

He spent his first day on the job dealing with a small forest fire all by himself. He came home around midnight to his worried wife, Ruth, who helped him wash up and said, “I don’t know about this new job of yours.”

The second day on the job, Pendry responded to a vehicle accident near the Virginia/North Carolina state line and returned home again at midnight looking even more disheveled. Ruth helped him clean himself up again, saying, “I reckon you better go back to work for maintenance.”

Despite the objections of his wife, Pendry continued his work as a park ranger. He turned down numerous promotions and transfers in order to stay near his family and friends in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

From behind the wheel of his patrol car, Pendry dealt with car wrecks, forest fires, lost hikers, and even moonshiners.

“I have looked at the end of a few gun barrels in my career,” Pendry said.

He was even given an incentive award for his plan to use police radio crystals to allow park rangers to communicate with local law enforcement and state troopers.

When I started my career as a ranger, we didn’t even have radios,” Pendry said. “If you got into trouble, you got out of it.”

The Parkway Today

Technology has revolutionized the way rangers patrol. When Pendry began his work as a ranger, he patrolled in a pickup truck with minimal equipment. Now park rangers drive modern police vehicles equipped with video cameras. Rangers carry tazers, mace, and other non-lethal tools. With this new equipment comes a new set of challenges.

Development is encroaching upon the Parkway. Moonshine runners have become meth-dealers. The Parkway is being used for commuter traffic by the masses. And more people than ever visit this national park. In 2006 there were more than 21 million visitors to the Blue Ridge Parkway-twice as many as any other unit in the national park system. And sprawling towns near the Parkway like Asheville and Boone have begun to affect activity along the Parkway.

“Anything that’s going on in these towns is also happening on the Blue Ridge Parkway,” says Highlands district ranger Brent Pennington.

If there ever has been a “Tonto” to these Lone Rangers of the Blue Ridge Parkway, it is the local officials from these towns near the Parkway.

“The Parkway is so integrated into local communities that we end up working a lot with local agencies,” says Pennington.

For example, when 12-year-old Boy Scout Michael Auberry went missing in Doughton Park last March near the Blue Ridge Parkway, 82 agencies, more than 532 people, and a rescue helicopter with infrared technology responded to help find him.

This kind of inter-agency help is vital because the Blue Ridge Parkway is severely understaffed. There are only around 35 rangers to patrol the entire length of the 469-mile Parkway. Seven of those rangers patrol the nearly 100 miles of road in the Highlands District.

“There just aren’t enough of us out there,” says Pennington.

Pennington said that his district needs nearly twice as many rangers to work effectively, and most other districts are not much better off. Much of the time, rangers are too far away from each other to provide assistance, and sometimes there are no rangers at all to respond to emergencies. With more than 21 million visitors to the Parkway in 2006, a number that will only continue to rise, this deficit in ranger staff is a critical problem.

One thing hasn’t changed since Pendry’s days as a ranger: night calls. Parkway rangers are often called out in the middle of the night to respond to emergencies.

“When you’re off duty, you’re not really off duty,” explains Pennington.

On top of their regular duties and off-hours emergency responsibilities, park rangers are now asked to set aside up to six weeks each year to be on call for Homeland Security Operations. Parkway rangers can be called up to help with natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina or forest fires. In the wake of September 11, Parkway rangers were sent all over the country to increase security at places with high terrorist risk.

Rangers throughout the National Parks System are spread extremely thin, and it does not look like things will improve anytime soon. Since Pendry retired in 1980, the budget for the Blue Ridge Parkway has only increased 0.5%. The Parkway has more than twice the combined visitation of Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon, yet it receives around half the funding of each.

This lack of funding has hit the Parkway hard. Nearly 1 in 4 positions on the Parkway’s staff are vacant, many employees are doing the work of two people, and the Parkway has imposed a hiring freeze. Some of the Parkway’s vistas are becoming overgrown because there are not enough maintenance personnel to mow the Parkway, and downed trees and other road obstructions are often not cleared in adequate time. The Parkway staff has also been forced to push back opening dates for many facilities.

The Bush Administration’s budget proposal for 2008 would provide a $1.5 million increase in the Parkway’s budget (as well as other temporary budget increases in other parks) to hire additional seasonal employees and prepare the parks for their centennial celebration in 2016. However, the Parkway needs at least $3 million to get back on track.

Organizations like the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation and the Friends of the Parkway help provide advocacy for the Parkway and run programs, but they cannot provide operational funds. Without a serious funding increase, this piece of American history will continue to face even more difficult times.

Despite these challenges, Blue Ridge Parkway rangers continue to ride into the sunset-and all through the night-patrolling the Parkway. These modern day kemosabes do everything they can to keep the Parkway safe. •