Behind the Parks: Tom Kirker at Slate Run

Tom Kirker
Part-time Ranger, Slate Run Metro Park

Hometown and Background

I grew up in Bexley, on the campus of Capital University. My dad was the Dean of Men at the university, and later became Chair of the university’s Education Department. My mom had graduated from Capital University with a degree in social work, so you could rightly say that education was in my blood from an early age. I was the youngest of three siblings, made up by my sisters Carol and Diane.

After high school in Bexley, I wanted to major in Fisheries Biology and Capital University had a great prerequisite two-year program. And as my dad was on staff, tuition was free for me at Capital. After qualifying the prerequisites I enrolled on the Fisheries Biology track at The Ohio State University. For some reason, I found that the program didn’t truly suit me and I struggled with the sheer size of the university. I was there for only one quarter. My thinking had shifted towards the education track and I returned to Capital University. I graduated from there in 1983 with a BA in Teacher Education.

My family had taken vacations to North Carolina every summer, and I loved the ocean so much I wanted to try to find work in that state. I had taken an out of state exam, the NTE (national teachers exam) to qualify me to work in North Carolina. I was seeking employment in education there, but my first opportunity for employment led me to work for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in their fisheries management program on Lake Erie. I was there for three months, but then got the call from North Carolina, inviting me to come work there. So, after just three months with ODNR, my wife Ann and I moved to North Carolina. I taught 6th Grade there.

I married Ann in 1984. She and I had graduated on the same day in the same discipline, but at different schools. Ann qualified for her teaching degree and teacher’s certificate at Ohio Dominican. We worked at the same school in North Carolina, but moved back to Ohio after a year, and we both found work as teachers with Columbus City Schools. I went to work at Trevitt Elementary School in inner city Columbus, where I taught 5th Grade. I was there for three years, but then I transferred to a school closer to Bexley, Berwick Elementary. It’s a wonderful alternative school, with the focus on Science, Math and Environmental Studies. I taught there for 26 years, until retiring in 2013. For the last 10 years, I taught social studies and science to 5th Graders.

But education was never my only career. I loved nature and the outdoors too much. In 1986 I interviewed for a part-time naturalist position with Metro Parks. I was interviewed by Gary Moore, a long-time employee with the parks, and most of the interview consisted of me being shown dozens of photos of plants and animals, with the requirement that I identify them all. As natural history was at the pinnacle of my interests, I identified everything easily enough, but I didn’t get the job. Instead, I was contacted not too long after and asked if I would be interested in a part-time ranger position at Slate Run Metro Park. Stacey Brehm was the manager at Slate Run then, and Bruce Dudley was his assistant. I jumped at the opportunity. I figured, correctly, that I would be out in nature a lot and would have ample opportunities to interpret nature for visitors, which has been the case for me during my entire time with Metro Parks.

Over the years, I have taken two periods of a break from my part-time work with Metro Parks. Our son Kyle was born in 1987, and our second son Casey was born in 1990. I needed to spend more time with our growing family, so I resigned from Metro Parks in 1990. Our family grew again in 1992, when our daughter Kathleen was born. I returned to working as a part-time ranger at Slate Run in 1996, but took another, longer break, from 2002 until 2012. Then, as I was nearing retirement as a teacher, I returned to part-time work at Metro Parks, but this time at Three Creeks Metro Park. It was great there, but the then manager at Slate Run, Jim Henry, was keen to have me back working at his park. So I transferred back to Slate Run and have been a part-time ranger here ever since.

What I do at Metro Parks and what I love most about it

As a part-time ranger, there’s a wonderful balance between the law enforcement demands of the job, and the customer service element, which allows me that leeway to share my knowledge of nature and of the park with our park visitors. We had a lot of law enforcement training in my earlier days, which I thoroughly enjoyed and which guides my thinking as I’m out patrolling at the park. I’m very observant, and have a sense for when something doesn’t feel quite right. Many times, that has helped me to thwart potential crimes, like break-ins. I love patrolling the park, which grants me the opportunity to experience the natural beauty at Slate Run and to see so much wildlife and the beautiful woods, wetlands and native plants. I must have hiked near enough every inch of the park, even off-trail, and I consider Slate Run akin to my second home. I get to see things that most visitors never get to see, including odd things sometimes. A sycamore completely encircled by the rim of a bicycle wheel certainly qualifies in that odd-sights category. The wheel had probably been dumped on site long before Slate Run opened as a park, and a new sycamore had germinated from seeds and grew from a sapling to a mature tree spot in the middle of it. The tree is probably 50 years old or more now.

In my earlier days, I patrolled a lot on foot, but now I patrol more often on the trails in one of our Kubota off-trail vehicles. It allows me to interact with more park visitors, which I love. I actually had knee replacement surgery late last year, and although I’m back and moving around very well, I’m doubly-glad to be out on the Kubota rather than out on foot.

My knee problem was related to a lifetime of playing sports, especially as a catcher in baseball. All that crouching and dropping to one’s knees was bound to catch up to me eventually. I was tall and slim, not the ideal combination for a catcher, but I played the position from age eight in little league right up to playing for the Bexley Lions in high school and one year of college for the Capital Crusaders. I also played receiver in football through high school, and played basketball from college and deep into adulthood, stopping only about seven years back. But I still play softball, and this summer, despite my knee replacement, I’m intent on playing my 40th consecutive year in various local leagues.

Although my base is Slate Run, our management team is also responsible for Chestnut Ridge Metro Park, so I patrol there quite often too. During the pandemic, I also patrolled shifts at other parks, including Clear Creek, Prairie Oaks, Three Creeks and Walnut Woods.

For about 20 years now, I have also presented three nature programs a year for the City of Bexley. We don’t have a naturalist at Slate Run any longer, but I managed to do a few nature programs here over the years, and presented an owl program at Pickerington Ponds Metro Park. I also like to write about nature. In the 1990s I wrote nature articles for the Messenger Newspapers, in two different columns, Nature in Your Neighborhood, and The Nature of Things. I probably wrote about 50 articles in total for those columns. I think I got my love of writing from my dad, who used to write articles for The Columbus Dispatch, back in the day, especially about his experiences in World War II, and how he came to Ohio from Boston after the war, and fell in love with Columbus. I also write three articles a year for Ohio Outdoor News. My last article, or commentary, as the newspaper styles them, was about Ed Thomas, the first chairman of the Metro Parks Board in 1945, and the state nature preserve in Sharon Woods, named to honor him, and his famous cabin in the Neotoma Valley, now a part of Clear Creek Metro Park.

My favorite Metro Parks activity

Hiking the trails has been a passion for Ann and myself over the years. We’ve been to every Metro Park and hiked a great many of the trails. Ann has a particular love for the Cemetery Ridge Trail at Clear Creek, and also for the Five Oaks Trail and Sugar Maple Trail at Slate Run. When we go to Clear Creek, we enjoy taking long hikes, of three hours or more. I’m hoping to get back to that this year, despite my knee surgery. We enjoyed discovering the new Benua Trail at Clear Creek last year. It goes through the woods and down to Lake Emily. This beautiful lake used to be off-limits to visitors, but now it’s opened up, thanks to the trail, and you can fish from the dam on the lake.

My favorite Metro Parks story that includes a memorable visitor interaction

Over the many years of my service at Slate Run, I’ve had many memorable interactions with visitors. One that stands out from last summer involves a near tragedy that ended happily. A young man, in his early twenties, had a seizure and fell face first into Buzzard’s Roost Lake, where he had been fishing. Luckily, some visitors had seen it happen and they managed to pull him out of the water. I arrived on scene with my assistant manager and we arranged for an ambulance and saw the young man transported safely to hospital. I returned to the lake later and gathered the fishing gear the young man had been using. It included a very high quality fishing rod and some of his tackle. But it transpired that someone had stolen his main tackle bag. About a week later, after we heard that the young man was home again, I went to see him and returned his fishing rod and equipment. Both he and his mom were so grateful to me. And although I was really just doing my job, I felt very honored and humbled by their gratitude. This young man had suffered health issues previously, but I’ve checked on him a few times and he seems to be doing well.

There have been many instances over the years where I have helped visitors find lost cell phones or car keys, quite often by taking the Kubota down the route they may have walked on the trails. And sometimes I’ve actually located people who have got lost out on the trails after darkness has fallen. When that happens, people will call the ranger cell phone and we try to work out where they might be by quizzing them about where they parked their vehicle and which trail they set out on. We receive lots of thanks and gratitude on those occasions too.

But sometimes a visitor interaction can be memorable for much less satisfying reasons. Occasionally we would do an all-day shift at the park, from opening up at 6:30am right through to closing time after dark. On one particular day, a visitor approached me soon after the park had opened and told me there was a young man back at the parking lot who was cavorting around dressed in women’s leopard-skin lingerie. When this very young man saw me approaching, in my ranger uniform, he got into his vehicle quick and drove off. But I took the license number of his vehicle. Later, as I followed the route out of the park, I saw items of lingerie discarded along the road, and also found a JC Penney bag and a receipt for the lingerie. My manager asked me to gather all the lingerie and receipts together in a bag, and quite frankly it all had an awful stench of stale sweat. That evening, a local deputy sheriff was in the park and chatted to me. I told him about my day, and the incident with the lingerie, and he asked me to give him the boy’s license number. The deputy sheriff left the park soon after, as we were very close to closing. But very shortly after, in the dark, I saw two sets of headlights coming towards me. I recognized the young man’s vehicle, and the deputy sheriff was following him. They stopped at the parking lot, and both the deputy sheriff and I talked to the boy, who remained in his vehicle. There were more items of lingerie in his car, and we assumed he had returned to try and find the items he had discarded earlier. The deputy sheriff told him that the ranger had something he wanted to say, and I told the boy that, although I didn’t know what he was going through, it had offended my sensibilities to have to pick up his stinking discarded lingerie. And with that, we let him go, with a warning against being a public nuisance. I never saw him again.

Traveling – places I’ve been, places I’d love to go

In my youth, our family took lots of vacations to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We would all love fishing and swimming in the ocean, and enjoying the fabulous seafood. We still have family vacations together, with our kids, but Ann and I have had vacations on our own too. We’ve been to the Gulf Coast in Florida a number of times, went to Hawaii one year, and later had a fabulous cruise to the southwestern part of Alaska. The scenery on the cruise was something I’ll never forget. Both Ann and I thought the scenery was ‘other-worldly.’ We’d never done a cruise before. We made three ports of call, including to Alaska’s state capital, Juneau. But the real highlight of the cruise was when we sailed up a narrow fjord towards the terminal end of a glacier. It was spectacular!

I’ve never traveled abroad, but Ann and I have discussed taking a Mediterranean cruise in the future, to take in Greece and the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia. I’d also like to go the British Isles. The name Kirker derives from the Scottish word, “kirk,” which means a church. We have old family connections in Scotland, England and Ireland. But I would be even more interested in visiting the Holy Land. It would mean something special and very spiritual for both Ann and I to see the land where the three great monotheistic religions of the world started.

Fun facts about me and my family

1. Birthday gatherings and karaoke! All five of us, plus our kids’ significant others, always get together and go out for meals on any of our birthdays. We also meet up for Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas. At these home gatherings, we often play games after eating, usually trivia type games, or games that Ann has searched out and found on the internet. About three years ago, on Father’s Day, I was given a karaoke machine as a gift and I’ve had a lot of use out of that ever since. I used to sing in high school, in the school choir, doing madrigals, Christmas songs and some popular music. I sang in the chorus for a big school production of “My Fair Lady” in my senior year. When it comes to karaoke, I like to sing some David Bowie songs and songs by Jim Morrison of The Doors fame.

2. Kirby, our maltipoo! Just a matter of a few weeks ago, we lost a family member, our wonderful maltipoo, named Kirby. He came to us 14 years ago, as a rescue dog, via a neighbor of ours who’s a veterinarian. Ann had wanted a dog to walk with, but Kirby, for all his tremendous attributes, was a little dog and not suited for the kind of long-haul walks Ann likes to take. But he’s been a fabulous companion for us over all these years. He was a super smart dog, and a fun lap dog who wanted to be with us all the time. Poor Kirby had been found in his dog carrier, which had been dumped by the trash. He was about two years old when he came to us and we had a wonderful life with him in the family. We gave so much to each other. Maltipoos are a maltese and poodle mix. They don’t shed, and they don’t cause allergies. We’ve also had cats over the years, but it’s so traumatic, losing pets. At least we have so many happy memories of Kirby to comfort us.

3. The great outdoors! I’m an avid fisherman and hunter, and have enjoyed introducing my kids to these activities. I took them all to hunter safety classes when they were 8 years old. I especially love saltwater fishing at the ocean. We still get together as a family for summer vacations at the ocean. We go to North Carolina or Florida for our vacations. I enjoy freshwater fishing too, and being able to walk up to and wade in the stream to enjoy a long fishing session. There is some great fishing at our parks. I love to fish in Walnut Creek in Walnut Woods Metro Park, below the Greenlawn Dam on the Scioto River at Scioto Audubon Metro Park, and on Big Darby Creek and Alum Creek. I have caught a lot of smallmouth bass, and saugeye, which is a hybrid fish between a walleye and a sauger. I’ve fished these rivers and streams going back to when I was a child, in most cases before they even became part of a Metro Park.

My favorite food and dessert

I love broiled or baked saltwater fish. My favorites include mahi-mahi, cobia, halibut and grouper. I’ve caught thousands of fish down the years, and filleted most of them myself, but I’m not a great cook. Ann loves fish too, but prefers salmon. About once a week, we have store-bought fish for our dinner. Our kids are great cooks, and we enjoy it when they take their turn in the kitchen. Casey used to work in a restaurant, although not in the kitchen. But he picked up a lot of great culinary ideas and techniques from a friend of his, who was a chef. I enjoy spinach, sweet potatoes or regular potatoes with my fish. For dessert, I’ll never say no to cheesecake, with cherry, blueberry or strawberry topping. I also love carrot cake, and enjoy flavored ice creams such as salty caramel.

My favorite entertainment

It should come as no surprise that my favorite entertainment includes being outdoors, and particularly to be out fishing. I’ve slowed down somewhat as I’ve aged, and as a result I don’t hunt as often as I did, but I still love to fish. I really enjoy watching OSU football, but I’ve soured on professional sports. There’s something about the self-entitled opinions of professional sports players that just doesn’t sit well with me.

I love to read about American history, the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and the lives of our presidents down the centuries. Two of my heroes are George Washington Carver, an agricultural scientist and professor at The Tuskegee Institute, and President Abraham Lincoln. A book about Lincoln that I recommend highly is “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever,” by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. It’s a richly footnoted book about Lincoln’s early life and rough political beginning, before becoming our greatest president. The story also covers the hunt for his assassins, and the aftermath.

Another book I recommend, which I read recently, is “Teddy and Booker T: How Two American Icons Blazed a Path for Racial Equality,” by Brian Kilmeade. It’s a story of President Teddy Roosevelt and one of his counselors, Booker T Washington, who founded the first American university for African Americans.

I also love to read nature journals. As a birder since age 10 I find books such as “Peterson’s Guide to Birds of the eastern United States” to be an indispensable aid. And I had the honor of meeting the author of one of my favorite books, “Fishes of Ohio.” Milton Trautman autographed my copy of his wonderful book.

I really like music of many genres. I especially like classic and alternative rock. My favorite band is the Canadian power trio of RUSH. I refer to their work as ‘intellectual rock’ because they were peerless instrumentalists and incorporate classic literature in most of their lyrics. I also like good, classic bluegrass, big band music from the ‘40s, and even some symphonic or classical works.

One more great interest of mine, down the years, was collecting beer cans. It may not sound very grand or noble, but I collected more than 1,500 different beer cans, many of them very rare. I started doing it when I was in 5th Grade, so it wasn’t a love of beer that got me started, but just a fascination with the artwork used by so many craft beer makers. I found a lot of my best and most rare cans by scrambling under buildings and recovering precious items from the trash that is often dumped there. About seven years ago, I finally gave up on my fascination, and sold my collection of beer cans for $1,000. So it rewarded me in multiple ways.

Why I love working at Metro Parks

I’ve worked at Metro Parks so long now, and what I love most of all is that I get to see different aspects of nature every single day. Sunsets at the park are glorious, and the night skies after the sun goes down is spectacular. I love to see the stars and planets in those night skies over the park, and often the only sound is that of the owls hooting. One of the wonderful things I’ve learned is how to call owls with my voice, which is such a joy. I can call great horned, barred and screech owls.

Tom Kirker was talking to Communications Coordinator, Virginia Gordon

What Slate Run Park Manager Marty Shull says about Tom

“I’ve known Tom for more than 25 years and it has been my pleasure to work directly with him for the past five years. His dedication to Metro Parks’ mission and to Slate Run in particular is evident everytime you speak with him. His passion for the natural world and sharing that passion with visitors is always front and center with every interaction he has. I look forward to continuing to work with Tom in the years to come, he is a true ambassador for Slate Run and Metro Parks.”