Audrey Calhoun credits Louisiana Tech for her one-of-a-kind career in forestry
Audrey Calhoun, who in 1973 graduated from Louisiana Tech’s School of Agricultural Sciences and Forestry, didn’t set out to be a trailblazer.
Her original plan wasn’t to become the first female to graduate from Tech with a bachelor’s in Forestry. Or the first black female to earn a forestry degree in the United States.
With humility and hard work, and with courage to take some chances when opportunity knocked, the Winnfield native made history. She retired and returned to her hometown in 2005, but her 34-year career in the National Park Service (NPS) still stands as a testament to both her toughness and her talent.
Calhoun returned to Tech recently to tour campus, to be the featured guest on the University’s Beyond 1894 podcast, to see continuing construction on the University’s Forest Products Innovation Center (FPIC) on South Campus, and to spend time encouraging Tech’s Women in the Woods chapter, an initiative designed to encourage young women to explore careers in forestry, often considered not easily accessible to women.
Her first real field experience came after a chance meeting with NPS employees at a career day event. A minority recruitment program helped her get a summer job as a park guide at Yellowstone National Park. Her gender, not her race, was what drew attention as “even the visitors kept asking how a girl got to be a ranger,” Calhoun said. “It was a totally new experience for them as well as for me.”
More than 50 years later, things have changed. Tools and technology, subject matter and intellect have all advanced. Experiences for both women and minorities have improved.
But Calhoun navigated a somewhat stagnant organization that was majority white and male. She was often tested by those who doubted her ability. The environment was sometimes intimidating, and Calhoun advised today’s students to “see yourselves as role models, so you’ll be prepared when you’re tested.”
Calhoun credited her mother’s educational background as a teacher and insistence on a college education as her inspiration. She graduated from Pinecrest High in Winn Parish in 1968, and in 1971 she graduated from Grambling College (now Grambling State University) with a bachelor’s degree in biology.
“I came from a family of strong women; the men were lowkey,” Calhoun said. “Our family had many teachers, but I knew I did not want to teach.”
She would likely have pursued a career in cellular biology had she not been recruited by the NPS and spent that summer after her graduation from Grambling at Yellowstone.
It was fun, she said, traveling for the first time, being in a new place, working outdoors, meeting visitors each day. But she knew that to become a ranger, she would need another degree to stand out in a competitive field.
Her family wanted her close to home and enticed her in a way that time hasn’t changed: they bought her a new car. And the closest school to Winnfield that met her initial interest in wildlife management to work with the NPS was Louisiana Tech.
“Being outdoors was not a different thing for me,” Calhoun said. “My father put in over 30 years at the sawmill, so I was familiar with sawmill operations when I trained on one at Louisiana Tech. Transitioning to forestry was not a difficult thing; it was just a change of mindset.”
Calhoun met Dr. Lloyd P. Blackwell, then Tech’s department head of forestry. Blackwell had a reputation for being larger-than-life, but he also cared about his students and kept up with then. He wrote them letters and had a map in his office with pins signifying where Tech forestry alumni were living and working. He visited Calhoun in Washington, D.C., soon after she started her professional career.
With her Tech degree in hand, Calhoun began a career that took her across the country. She especially enjoyed the Glen Echo Park in Bethesda, Md., the President’s Park in downtown Washington, the Arlington House in McLean, Va., and the Clara Barton National Historical Site in Maryland. Her endeavors included working with buffalo; containing bees, snakes, and deer; crowd control during raucous Fourth of July celebrations; historic preservation; and much more.
“I think Louisiana Tech was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Calhoun said. “The National Park Service looked for people with science degrees, and that is the one thing that set me up because it focused on forestry. I am very, very happy that Louisiana Tech took me on.”