Robin Riddlebarger: Naturally a Nature Lover

Robin Riddlebarger, Park Superintendent of Hanging Rock State Park, has lived in Winston-Salem, NC, since her summer job there in 1999.  She has worked in parks since she was 16, and has never had any other type of job.  Originally from Ohio, she has always loved nature, camping, and parks. Radio Camper Audrey Corriere has more.

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When I met her, Robin Riddlebarger was in her uniform: a khaki shirt and pants, a wide brimmed hat, and a belt with different tools on it.  She was nervous and excited as we found a shaded bench and I asked her about her personality. 

A lot of park rangers have a personality that they like their alone time and they like to be outside, and I'm that way also, but you do have to interact with people  quite a bit, so you get the two kinds of people; you get the really singular people who like to be alone, and the really talkative people that like being people persons, so there's two different kinds of personalities that do good with that.

For a lot of people, their childhood affects their future occupation.  I asked how her job had been affected by the way she had been raised.

We always were outside. My dad says we were free range kids, and that we didn't need a babysitter because we had a creek. We were always outside, from morning 'till night,  you know, in the creek and playing outside, we lived out in the country.  Our vacations did involve a lot of parks and camping, you know, we always wanted to go to Disney, or Myrtle Beach, or something like that, but we never got to do that because we were always going to Carter Caves or somewhere to a park for vacation, but that's good, I enjoy that and still do that.

To learn more about our state parks, go to ncparks.gov.

For 88.5 WFDD Radio Camp I'm Audrey Corriere.