Theodore Roosevelt and the Fifes and Drums of York Town will team up to celebrate the 102nd birthday of the National Park Service. Founders Day festivities span Yorktown Battlefield Visitor Center and Historic Jamestowne Saturday.
“We’re still trying to make a point on the actual date to really highlight some of the things that we do in our national parks here,” said Paul Carson, chief of interpretation and education for Colonial National Historical Park, a division of the NPS that oversees both sites.
Interpreter Bill Rose will portray Roosevelt, the U.S. president who spearheaded founding the Park Service. Rose began studying and performing the role in 2016.
“We enjoy having him come back because he does such a great portrayal of Theodore Roosevelt,” Carson said. “Visitors are just amazed at how much the resemblance is so much like the real Theodore Roosevelt.”
Carson said the event aims to emphasize Roosevelt’s commitment to the conservation of the nation’s natural beauty.
“We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible,” Roosevelt told Congress in 1907. “This is not so.”
The Fifes and Drums of York Town also will serenade the audience at Yorktown with the ensemble’s token historical music.
Carson hopes the event highlights what the NPS has represented since its inception.
“We’re a very preservation-oriented, conservation-oriented agency,” he said. “We’re very interested in serving the public.”
Want to go?
Bill Rose portrays Theodore Roosevelt at 11 a.m. Saturday at Yorktown Battlefield Visitor Center and at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Historic Jamestowne. The Fifes and Drums of Yorktown perform at 2 and 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Yorktown Battlefield Visitor Center. For more information, visit nps.gov/colo.
