Meet Charlie Evans, a Naturalist at Fort Yargo State Park and graduate of the University of Georgia.
Charlie is a young woman passionate about nature and working in the community. We’d like to thank Charlie very much for sitting down with us to discuss her experience working in Barrow County.
Enjoy our interview with Charlie
My name is Charlie Evans and I’m the naturalist at Fort Yargo State Park.
What is your connection to Barrow County?
Mostly I lived in Athens and while I was in school I got a job at Fort Yargo State Park and it’s probably the first time I’d been to Barrow County.
What inspired you or led you to this career?
I’ve always wanted to work in parks.
We went out to Yellowstone when I was in high school and after that I knew I needed to be in parks.
Getting into school I realized that our state park system is so wonderful and there’s so many different opportunities to go into so that I got a degree in natural resources, recreation and tourism and it’s very parks heavy and parks focused and that’s how I got here.
Do you see yourself at Fort Yargo long term?
I hope so.
What’s something on your bucket list?
Maybe to do some through hikes? So like the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail, but those are long off distant bucket list things.
What’s your favorite music?
I like a little bit of everything. Kind of like some folksy stuff but also love awful pop music, It’s just so catchy.
If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would you go and why?
That’s hard. There’s so many good places.
I’ll go with Iceland just because my family and I are looking at trying to go. We are planning it but can’t decide on when to go. We would like to see the Northern Lights but then if you go and it’s just a snowstorm the whole time then you miss out on this winter wonderland.
What is something interesting that most people don’t know about?
My family knows this but I really love Tree ID. Mom and I will go out on a hike and I do trees and she does plants so it takes us about an hour because we’re always stopping.
If you had a full time staff member that was fully paid for, who would you choose? Like a chef, housekeeper, driver, coach, physical trainer, nanny.
I like cooking and I like cleaning as it’s de-stressing. Maybe a pet sitter.
If you could choose anyone alive to have lunch with who would it be. Not a relative.
I don’t have anybody specifically that I can think of alive or dead that I would do anything to have lunch with.
Where in Barrow County would you go for lunch?
I haven’t been to a lot of places in Barrow County as I usually bring my lunch but the Bistro Off Broad downtown has really good french fries.
How long have you worked in Barrow County?
It’s been almost a year since I started at Fort Yargo State Park.
What is your favorite thing or something unique about Barrow County that you have found in the recent time you’ve been here?
So I don’t leave Fort Yargo often, but when I do, I always notice there are a lot of local farmers selling produce like honey out of their houses.
I think it’s really neat that even if there’s not a farmers market or something like that to go to, you can still stop by and pick something up.
Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years?
That’s a big question.
Right now I’m part time so I would love to be in a full time position doing what I love. And maybe expanding on it and getting the community more involved.
We hope you enjoyed learning about Charlie and her story.
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