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Stephanie Kyriazis, chief of resource education at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, takes pride in the park being a biodiversity spot for the world.

“We are discovering new species all of the time and we have a partner with ‘Discover Life in America,’ a nonprofit working parallel with the park to identify as many species as possible that exists within the park,” she said.

So far, more than 21,000 different species have been counted inside the park as distinct organisms. This includes everything from more than 1,500 flowering species of plants, 400 species of moss, more than 2,000 species of fungi, or mushrooms and 130 species of trees and shrubs, more than what exists in the European continent.

There are more than 200 species of birds and the world’s most biodiverse location for salamanders, with more than 30 species, plus 11,000 species of bugs. There are 67 species of mammals, including 1,900 black bears.

There are more than 100 historic structures in the Smokies.

“The number of national parks I’ve been to have a small of number of historic homes that are locked up and only open during certain times,” Kyriazis said. “In the Smokies, there are cabins spread throughout the landscape. They’re open for people to enjoy.”

One of the challenges are that vandals often want to leave their mark on these cabins.

“There are a lot of graffiti in some of those cabins,” she said. “It’s a constant challenge the park is grappling with. It’s a lot to preserve and maintain. It’s important to recognize those traces of humanity on the landscape.”

There are also a lot of archaeological finds associated with the native American Cherokee. There are also about 150 family cemeteries on park property from when farms were located there.

“You don’t think of national parks of being places that may be the final resting ground for folks, but because of the 1,200 families in the communities in the park before it opened,” she said. “Many people had been married over time there. We have worked hard to establish relationships with descendants who have ties to those cemeteries to make sure these are maintained in good order, the gravestones cleaned and the cemeteries looking tidy.”

Kyriazis said that there are a handful of internments each year in those cemeteries.

The Smokies are a place where memories are made.

“I fell in love with the place,” Kyriazis said. “I’ve worked at 10 different national parks during my tenure, out of about 420 of them across this country. I’ve got a few more to go.”

Kyriazis has visited 100 parks during her career.

“I feel blessed every single day to work for the National Park Service,” she said. “It is such a tremendous institution that preserves and shares amazing American stories and landscapes with the public from all over this country and folks who are coming to visit the United States as well. I feel very strongly about the mission of this organization and the positive role the national parks, both historic and cultural, can have in society.”

Like many organizations, the National Park Service experienced changes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In the case of the Smokies, we had more people than ever come to visit,” Kyriazis said. “People were seeking safe, healthy, outdoor experiences during that period of time and many of them, both locally and the surrounding states, were coming to the Smokies to enjoy that.”

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established in 1934. It was dedicated by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1940.

“There was a desire to have a big national park east of the Mississippi,” Kyriazis said. “There were lots of vast, beautiful, public lands out west, land that had been managed by the government (that had) easily been transferred into a national park with Yellowstone, Yosemite and several others.”

Unlike out west, the areas where the GSMNP area of Tennessee and North Carolina was already thickly settled, first for thousands of years by the Cherokee, then later on by Euro-American settlers. The 500,000 acres that are called the Smokies today is the East’s crown jewel of a national park. Around 80 to 85% of the area was owned by logging companies before the states of Tennessee and North Carolina purchased those lands. There were also about 1,200 landowners in both states who grew up there on farms, many of which are now tourist cabins.

“Through a process, everybody was compensated for their land, but not everybody wanted to leave,” Kyriazis said. “It’s your home place, not anything you want to give up lightly.”

The Smokies have been an economic engine to both states, a cultural touchstone and a place of sanctuary and refuge for a wide variety of species and the humans living in this immediate area and those who come visit it from all over the world, Kyriazis said.

Each year the NPS does an economic impact study for each park. Many of the parks out west did not have communities or infrastructure on the properties. Contrast that with the GSMNP where businesses surround the mountains.

“For every dollar the federal government invests, the park turns $50 to the local economy,” she said. “That was $1.3 billion in 2021 on 18,800 jobs in the community.

“You actually had the development of hotels inside the national parks,” she said. “When the Smokies was established in the 1930s, there was a desire on the part of the government to boost local business. There was a deliberate decision to not build hotels or restaurants inside the park, but instead to encourage development of that on the outskirts of the national park so the local community could have a business boost from this.”

There are plenty of activities to do, including hiking, fishing, camping, horseback riding and more. Kyriazis thinks the prettiest streams she has seen are in the Smokies.

“There are beautiful, cascading streams, small and large waterfalls, islands,” she said. “I often see people pull off the side of the road with a chair right against the edge gazing out at a stream for hours at a time.”

Kyriazis talked about the parking fee for certain areas of the Smokies to be implemented March 1, the ‘Park it Forward’ program. Those parked for more than 15 minutes at a time will require a parking pass, whether it be a daily, weekly or annual pass. Most parks charge a $25 to $35 fee a week to get into the park. The GSMNP’s fees are $5 per day, $15 per week or $40 for a one-year pass.

“The idea there is that we’re hoping the funds from the parking pass will be able to shore up our ability to provide a good visitor experience and to protect that array of species and the amazing recreational infrastructure in the park.

“Folks seem to concentrate on certain key sites,” she said. “That means it could really be hard to find parking at those locations. Trails are really crowded around the Laurel Falls, Allen Cave and Cades Cove and can be a real challenge.”

The majority for most national parks come from congressional appropriation. GSMNP gets less money than most of the other parks. The Smokies have about $2 of funding per visitor, compared with $15 per visitor for parks like the Grand Canyon.

There are 200 permanent staff members and 100 seasonal staff members at GSMNP.

Before coming to GSMNP in 2020, Kyriazis served as the Chief of Interpretation, Education and Visitor Services at Marsh-Billing-Rockefeller National Historical Park and Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park, as well as serving as the Chief of Interpretation and Education at Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park.

At Marsh-Billings and Saint-Gaudens, her work focused on expanding recreational opportunities, particularly for new users and underserved audience; inclusive storytelling; and cultivating community partnerships. With the NPS Stewardship Institute, housed at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller NHP, Kyriazis has led science communication workshops, participated in extensive facilitation training, and supported evaluation of regional teacher professional development programs. In spring of 2019, Kyriazis served in a three-month detail as Acting Chief of Resource Education at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which introduced her to the people, partners, and places associated with the park.

Kyriazis has been with the National Park Service for 17 years. She started her career as a geology intern at Bryce Canyon National Park. She served as an education ranger at Death Valley National Park and Acadia National Park, where she introduced citizen science projects into park education programs. As the Chief of Interpretation and Education at Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park, Kyriazis deepened the park’s relationship with the local school district, coordinated events associated with the 60th anniversary of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that mandated school desegregation, and collaborated on a community-wide initiative to commemorate the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956. Her professional passions include science communication, youth engagement, and equity work.