Meet Frank and Jennifer McCarthy, Blackrock District Ambassadors, Visitor Services/Front Desk
Texans Frank and Jennifer McCarthy first fell in love with the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem when they drove through in their Miata sports car. “We loved to run around in it and took it around Yellowstone and the Tetons,” says the couple (who now have a Fiat instead of a Miata). “This area just captured a piece of our hearts.”
They’ve since spent a summer working in Yellowstone National Park and volunteered as bear safety educators at Mesa Falls in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest in Idaho.
“After retirement, we thought we’d come up here and work and volunteer at different jobs,” says the couple, who have a five-acre farm north of Dallas. “As we did more research, we saw that you could go anywhere in the U.S. doing this, but we haven’t gotten away from the Yellowstone region yet.”
The couple is excited to be Friends of the Bridger-Teton Ambassadors this summer because they like being in nature and being surrounded by wildlife and helping people better understand both. “We like the solitude of being in nature,” they say.
“Meeting campers and people at Mesa Falls, they were so thankful of the information that we shared about bear safety,” they say. “They’d thank us for being volunteers. Most people want to do the right thing and help take care of public lands and were appreciative of us helping them do that.”
Fun Facts: 1. The McCarthys have been married for 51 years. High school sweethearts, the couple have three kids, including twin boys, and seven grandkids, and celebrated their 50th anniversary with a cruise to Alaska.
2. They travel with a part-Siamese rescue cat, Kitty. “She loves camping,” they say. “If we go outside and start packing the camper, she is right on our heels. She’s afraid we’ll leave without her.”