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Randy Pope, former Smokies superintendent and leader in creation of Friends of the Smokies, dies at age 91

Pope was superintendent for seven, financially lean years for the popular park. He helped create the non-profit Friends of the Smokies.

A former superintendent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park who was instrumental in creation of the Friends of the Smokies non-profit has died at age 91.

Randall R. "Randy" Pope of Gatlinburg was superintendent of the Smokies from the mid 1980s until retirement in late 1993. A native Kansan, Pope spent more than 30 years with the National Park Service including stints at the Herbert Hoover National Site in West Branch, Iowa, and in the Ozarks in Missouri.

Pope served as Smokies superintendent at a time when the park budget was particularly lean.

As he would one day write in a recollection of the creation of Friends of the Smokies, the Smokies' budget's purchasing power had shrunk considerably over a series of years, and the Smokies faced a multimillion-dollar maintenance backlog.

Pope and other longtime park supporters including Gary Wade, a Sevier Countian and state appellate court judge, and his friend, architect Tommy Trotter, ultimately hatched in 1993 on the idea of a fundraiser that evolved into creation of the Friends group to help with park needs that otherwise wouldn't get funded.

One of the Friends' first projects was to restore the dilapidated Mount Cammerer fire tower. Thirty years later, Friends of the Smokies continues to raise money for projects to help subsidize the park's many needs.

It remains far and away the most visited national park in the U.S. system, routinely exceeding 12 million visitors a year.

Creation of the Friends and its evolution through the decades has been featured by the philanthropic Pew Charitable Trusts and in retired News Sentinel columnist Georgiana Vines' book, "Where Are They Now".

Credit: Friends of the Smokies
Gary Wade, talking about creation of Friends of the Smokies in the early 1990s.

Pope died Tuesday.

According to his obituary, his ashes will be scattered in the park at some point in the future.

In lieu of flowers, the family is asking that donations be made to Friends of the Smokies, P.O. Box 1660, Kodak, TN 37764 or to the Gatlinburg First United Methodist Church, 742 Parkway, Gatlinburg, TN 37738.

Atchley Funeral Home is handling arrangements.

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