Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Seeking Volunteers To Help Shape Visitor Experience

The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is searching for new volunteers to help greet visitors and answer their questions.

The prairie sees an estimated 20,000 visitors a year, and in many cases, they interact with a docent who is volunteering their time.

One of the many perks of volunteering as a docent is occasionally getting to come out to parts of the preserve that are closed to the public.

Miles off the beaten path, surrounded by rolling hills and bison, sits one of the private locations on the 40,000 acre nature preserve.

"This is one of our most pristine areas. It's just basically untouched. If you were standing here about two or 300 years ago, it would look just about like you're seeing now,” Community Relations Coordinator Harvey Payne said.

Payne showed News On 6 the area where docents were offered a private hike last summer as a thank-you for their work. He said it was one of the locations where Killers of the Flower Moon was filmed.

Outside of that area, visitors come to the Tallgrass Prairie for all kinds of reasons.

"It's just so peaceful. And it is. And it's history, too,” Carol Elam from Bartlesville said.

"You just come here and kind of go into a peaceful mode,” Bill Alexander said.

Alexander is the preserve's Docent Coordinator. Serving as a docent for 12 years, he's met visitors from all over the world. Now, he trains people of all ages and levels of expertise to become volunteers.

"Anybody can do this,” Alexander said.

Docents carry a binder full of information to help answer people's questions, but it's the personal interactions that make all the difference for visitors.

"The docents are the face of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve,” Payne said.

"And we've met some great docents. The people that do volunteer for that program, they're so knowledgeable,” Elam said.

To become a docent, the preserve only asks that you volunteer three days a year.

"For three days of the year, where else can you volunteer and do that but also be in such a lovely place and see all you get to see here?" Alexander said.

If you're interested in becoming a docent, informational meetings and training events are coming up. The schedule from The Nature Conservancy is below.

Optional Non-Committal Informational Meeting

· Sunday, February 4 at Tulsa Hardesty Regional Library | 2-3 pm, or

· Tuesday, February 6 at Bartlesville Public Library | 7:30-8:30 pm

Optional Docent Update Meeting

· Tuesday, February 13 at Bartlesville Public Library | 10 am-3 pm, or

· Saturday, February 17 at Tulsa Hardesty Regional Library | 10 am-3 pm

New Docent Training

· Saturday, February 24 at Tulsa Hardesty Regional Library | 10 am-4 pm, or

· Friday, March 1 at Bartlesville Public Library | 10 am-4 pm