Get to know our guides for the September 12th Hikes in the Park!

Hightop Summit Hike will be led by Barb Stewart. 

Barb served the National Park Service as a Park Ranger for 33 years. She began her career as a volunteer in 1977 for Shenandoah National Park, sharing a trailer with great people and far too many rodents. After retiring, Barb started working for free again, which was much less paperwork and way more fun! She loves volunteering as a hiking guide, and she’s very much looking forward to finding out how much other people enjoy Hightop Summit on September 12th! 

Nature Walk in Big Meadows will be led by Anna Burtch, Rebekah Everett, and Jordan Malhiot. 

Anna Burtch

Anna recently graduated from Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania with two bachelor’s degrees in Environmental Studies/Sustainability and Parks and Resource Management. She also has a minor in Environmental Education and Historical Interpretation. During her final year at college, she interned for the Humane Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Pittsburgh and attended to wildlife such as opossums, squirrels, foxes, a variety of raptor and bird species, as well as many others.

Anna also had the opportunity to travel to China and New Zealand while earning her undergraduate degrees. In China, she was a research assistant for a GIS project based on forest fires in the Yunnan Province. In New Zealand, she was a foreign exchange student at Victoria University of Wellington and volunteered for a local conservation group that focused on habitat and plant restoration in the city of Wellington.

After graduation Anna took a position as a park ranger for the Army Corp of Engineers at Shenango Lake, Pennsylvania. She also worked for Slippery Rock University’s Environmental Education Center, the Robert A. Macoskey Center. There she attended to the gardens, planted seedlings, took care of the chickens, and helped with interpretative programs.

 

Rebekah Everett 

Rebekah was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia and has enjoyed the diverse nature-scapes that Virginia has to offer for her whole life. From the sandy beaches, to the mountains and rivers – she loves it all! Pursuing her interest in the outdoors, Rebekah graduated from James Madison University in 2019 with a B.S. in Geographic Science and a minor in environmental studies. Upon graduating, she joined the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, producing written and cartographic resources for National Parks throughout the Northeast. After two years working with parks at the regional level, she is excited to be here at Shenandoah working at the park level and learning more about interpretation and education. Rebekah is especially grateful to be at a park that has been the backdrop of so many of my own memories and lessons growing up. This season, she is thrilled to be able to share the wonders of the night with visitors to Shenandoah!

 

Jordan Malhiot 

Jordan has a BA in History and Anthropology from the University of Kansas (KU). She is currently completing her MA in Museum Studies, also from KU, with a focus in Collections Management of historical and archaeological collections. During her studies, Jordan worked with KU’s Biodiversity Institute in the Division of Archaeology as a curatorial assistant on collections from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She has also completed two previous internships with the National Park Service. First, at Cape Cod National Seashore as a cultural resource management intern, then at Harry S Truman National Historic Site as a collections management intern, where she predominately worked on re-housing and regular maintenance of the site’s collection. She hopes to deepen and expand her knowledge of National Park Service museum practices, particularly with archival collections, and is interested in working with the National Park Service or other agencies in a collections management position.