Employee Takes Pride in State Parks Family Legacy

First posted on 07-24-2008

For Brian Stith, a love of Missouri’s state parks seems to run through his veins.

Brian Stith is the fourth generation in his family to work for Missouri’s state park system, which is maintained by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ Division of State Parks. Stith’s great, great maternal grandfather, Lester Dickson, was superintendent at Arrow Rock State Park from 1943 through 1954. In the 1920s, Lester’s wife, Nettie, sold the tavern that is now part of Arrow Rock State Historic Site to the State of Missouri.

Brian’s paternal grandfather, Bob Stith, also worked as superintendent at Arrow Rock State Park, from the late 1950s to 1972. Brian’s mother, Mary Stith, began working in Arrow Rock in 1989, first as a tourist assistant and later as an interpretive resource technician, eventually retiring from the department in 2006. Brian’s older sister, Pamela Muren, also shared her family’s commitment to protect Missouri’s natural resources and worked as an environmental engineer in the department’s Air Pollution Control Program.

Brian grew up on a farm near Arrow Rock and began working as a tour guide for the Friends of Arrow Rock in 1988. Joining his family legacy, Brian gave guided tours through the state historic site buildings, include the courthouse and the Old Tavern that his grandmother sold to the State of Missouri decades before. In 1995, Brian accepted a position as assistant historic site administrator for the Missouri State Museum in Jefferson City. He later become a section chief in the Division of State Parks’ Interpretation Program and then field operations coordinator for the division’s Eastern Parks District in St. Louis. For nearly nine years, Brian and his mother and sister all worked together at the Department of Natural Resources.

Brian has enjoyed having a career that allows him to serve the citizens of the State of Missouri and the opportunity to walk in the footprints left behind by his family.

“I have two daughters, and my only hope for them is that they find an occupation that they can enjoy as much as I enjoy mine,” Stith said.