Mesa Verde National Park ranger Brian Forist will deliver a lecture titled “That’s How it Was in the Cs” on Friday at 7 p.m. at the Chapin Mesa Museum. Forist will speak on the works and legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps at Mesa Verde National Park and beyond. This presentation is part of the 2016 Four Corners Lecture Series.
Brian Forist is a seasonal Interpretive Park Ranger at Mesa Verde National Park and a lecturer in Outdoor Recreation, Parks, and Human Ecology at Indiana University. He has been fascinated with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) since living in a CCC camp in Northern Michigan’s Hiawatha National Forest as a participant in the Youth Conservation Corps in 1972. He has spent the last four decades learning about and sharing America’s natural and cultural heritage with park visitors, kids and his students.
The CCC was a public works program created under President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal that not only provided jobs and training, but also set out to protect and conserve natural resources.
The Four Corners Lecture Series features presentations about the archaeology, current Native American cultures, history, and natural resources of the area. All programs are free and open to the public.
The Four Corners Lecture Series is sponsored by the Anasazi Heritage Center; ARAMARK Parks and Destinations; Bureau of Land Management; Cortez Cultural Center; Crow Canyon Archaeological Center; Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum; Fort Lewis College Office of the President, Department of Anthropology and Center of Southwest Studies; Friends of Cedar Mesa; Colorado Archaeological Society, Hisatsinom Chapter; KSJD Dryland Community Radio; Mesa Verde Foundation; Mesa Verde Museum Association; Mesa Verde National Park; San Juan Basin Archaeological Society; and Southwest Colorado Canyons Alliance.
For a list of other programs in the series, go to www.mesaverde.org/four-corners-lecture-series.