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February 7th, 2026

One Ranger's Quest To Save His Beloved Desert

  1. One Ranger's Quest To Save His Beloved Desert Don Murphy 26:40

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This is the story of how a young man fell in Love with the beauty and mystery of the desert and translated that love into a career as ranger protecting that desert.

Vic Maris began his career with California State Parks, working at Red Rock Canyon in 1974. He served throughout the State during his 30-year career working as a park ranger, supervising ranger, and superintendent. His favorite job was working as Superintendent of the Mojave Sector, protecting seven parks including Red Rock Canyon State Park. Vic has always been fascinated by the night sky. When he retired from State Parks, he founded Stellarvue, a telescope company that has been making world-class refractors for 27 years.   In his spare time, Vic has been writing a book about his 60-year love affair with Red Rock Canyon State Park.  

https:/natureandsciencepodcast.com

Donald Murphy Host and Executive Producer

Host Don Murphy has been a medical research assistant at the Salk Institute For Biological Research, a park ranger, director of California State Parks and deputy director of the U.S. National Park Service. He has traveled the world representing the United States on the World Heritage Commission. Don is the author of several books: “Love Vignettes”, a collection of love sonnets; “Beth”, a coming of age story of a young girl; and several children’s books.

Don was honored by the University of California, San Diego as one of its top 50 Alumni. For fifteen years he led executive leadership seminars at the Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colorado and at the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia. For the past ten years Don has led Making Sense of Science Seminars to promote science literacy among seniors.