Presidential Documents

Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 77 / Thursday, April 20, 2000 / Presidential Documents 21115

Proclamation 7293 of April 14, 2000

National Park Week, 2000

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

We are fortunate to live in an era when the explosive growth of technology

has put at our fingertips an extraordinary array of information. But even

during this technological revolution, one of America’s richest and most

fascinating educational resources is also among its oldest: our national park

system. Our national parks are living libraries and laboratories, where all

Americans can experience the beauty and variety of nature and learn about

our Nation’s history and culture.

Preserving the rare and unusual as well as the spectacular and beautiful,

our national parks provide botanists, wildlife biologists, chemists, and other

scientists the opportunity to conduct research into the fragile ecosystems

that affect the health of people, plants, and animals around the world.

Geologists and paleontologists find in our national parks the story of our

continent, from the Grand Canyon’s geologic formations to the ancient bones

resting at Dinosaur National Monument.

The national park system also captures America’s more recent history. In

the National Historic Sites and along the National Historic Trails maintained

by the men and women of the National Park Service, we learn about the

lives and achievements of American heroes like Lewis and Clark, Sojourner

Truth, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the

Wright Brothers, and Thomas Edison. From Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania,

where a young George Washington saw action in the French and Indian

War, to the quiet acres of Gettysburg, where one of the Civil War’s bloodiest

battles was fought, to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where

the modern civil rights movement reached its emotional peak 35 years

ago, Americans can see and touch their history.

Today, we have 379 national parks, and each site offers a unique opportunity

to experience the wonder of nature, to stand in the footprints of history,

to learn about our culture and our society, to study the natural world,

and to look toward the future. As we observe National Park Week, I join

all Americans in thanking the men and women of the National Park Service

for their dedication in caring for these special places. We are indebted

to them for preserving and protecting our natural and cultural heritage,

not only for our enjoyment and education today, but also for the benefit

of generations to come.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the United States

of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution

and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 17 through April

23, 2000, as National Park Week.

21116 Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 77 / Thursday, April 20, 2000 / Presidential Documents

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourteenth day

of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand, and of the Independence

[FR Doc. 00–10004

Filed 4–19–00; 8:45 am]

Billing code 3195–01–P

of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-fourth.

œ–