In honor of the National Park Service Centennial, actor Joe Wiegand will be performing as President Theodore Roosevelt at 7:30 p.m., on May 6 and 7, at the Shrine of the Ages in Grand Canyon Village.
This free event will celebrate the legendary politician and conservationist who set aside Grand Canyon as a national monument in 1908. Wiegand has been performing as T.R. across the country since 2004.
I recall bumping into him, in character, in the visitor center at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. I was with a handful of colleagues from a variety of national parks. Wiegand amazed all of us by speaking eloquently about each of our parks without missing a beat. If this was any indication, his upcoming performance at Grand Canyon is not to be missed.
As an aside, in researching this column I came across a wonderful clip from a PBS series on Grand Canyon National Park. The narrator explains how the 26th President of the United States outsmarted commercial interests in utilizing the Antiquities Act to give this iconic landscape the protection it sorely deserved. It is worthy viewing for anyone who has ever taken this Crown Jewel national park for granted.
