Oct. 24, 2008 — There's a new face at the Friends of V.I. National Park: In September Audrey Penn took over from Kristen Maize as the organization's program manager.
"It's a way for me to have a connection to the park," says Penn, 23.
She sees that the Friends do an important job in supporting park programs that otherwise wouldn't happen because of park funding issues.
Penn brings a tremendous amount of enthusiasm to the job, says Friends of the Park President Joe Kessler.
"She's really jazzed about the park and turning people on to the park," he says.
Penn had hoped for a job as an interpretive ranger at the park, but the park didn't bite until after she was already on board at the Friends.
"I always loved hiking and being outdoors," she says.
Indeed, Penn thinks things have worked out for the best, since her job with the Friends provides flexibility to do the job the way she wants. A big fan of the park, she says that if the park wasn't on St. John, the island "would look like St. Thomas."
Penn returned home to St. John in 2006 after graduating with a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. She proudly noted that her education didn't cost her a dime because she got scholarships and grants.
She originally planned to be a dentist, but those required science courses proved an obstacle.
"I took an anthropology course and just fell in love with it, and I made the dean's list in my last semester," she says.
A trip to Mexico during her junior year and a semester abroad in Australia her senior year further convinced her this was the direction she wanted to go.
Penn says she knew when she came home that it would be difficult to find a job where she could use her degree, so after serving a summer internship at the Friends, she started out doing bookkeeping at Concordia Eco-camps.
"I got stir crazy," she says.
That condition led to a job that included working in Concordia's store and at the activities desk. The activities-desk position allowed Penn to take guests out on guided hikes at nearby Salt Pond, a job she loved.
"I showed them the plants," she says.
When Maize told her she was leaving, Penn jumped at the chance to join the Friends.
The daughter of Elaine Penn and Charlie Penn, she was born at Peebles Hospital in her father's native Tortola. After three days, the family was back on St. John, where her parents were living.
She attended kindergarten at Julius E. Sprauve School before heading off to elementary school at Pine Peace School, now Gifft Hill School. She took the ferry to St. Thomas to attend Antilles School.
Penn is active in sports, playing tennis and running, but like many of St. John's younger people, on weekends she heads off to White Bay, Jost Van Dyke.
"I put my chair in the water and pretend I'm a tourist," she says.
As for her future, Penn says that after at least five years at the Friends of the Park, she'd like to go to graduate school to get a master's degree in counseling. A biracial woman, Penn says she'd then like to return home to put her experience growing up on St. John with a black father and a white mother to good use by counseling young people who face similar challenges.
"It was the clash of the cultures," she says.
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