Outstanding Scholar Program at Mount Rushmore. Olson had planned


on teaching as a career, but a college visit, from a park service ranger helped change her plans. She got a degree in tourism, instead, and went to work in what she calls, "the best career in the world." Working in inter


emotion in everyone that sees it."


Interpreting


Mount Rushmore, with all its symbol ism, history and patriotic meaning, is a harder task than it is at some of the more natural parks, Olson said, but also a more fulfilling one.


Judy Olson Photographs and


pretation and education services at Mount Rushmore, she became a teacher of sorts, she said. "Interpretation means that we inter pret the resource. We tell people about the mountain," Olson said. As a ranch girl from the Lemmon


area, Olson was raised on family sum mer vacations to Mount Rushmore. She has annual snapshots of herself in front of the memorial, but no real rec ollection of her first visit to it. Paperwork is the worst part of her job, but even that can't dampen her


enthusiasm for what she loves the most talking with tourists who are experiencing the memorial for the first time, or those who are back for a repeat visit. "It's a very emotional place


for people," she said. "Even though


Mount


Rushmore doesn't mean the same thing to everybody, it means something to everyone who sees it. It creates an


story reprinted with permission from the Rapid City Journal.


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