Shelton Johnson

Shelton Johnson was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1958 and then his family moved to Contwig, Germany, for over a year, followed by a stay in North London, England; Vacaville, CA; Kansas City, MO; Spartanburg, SC; and then back to Detroit in 1968. He graduated from Detroit's Cass Technical High School in 1976. He attended Wayne State University for a year before transferring to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Shelton graduated from U of M with a B.A. in English Literature. While an undergraduate at Michigan, he also won a Major Hopwood Award in Poetry. Subsequent to college, he briefly served in the Peace Corps as an English Teacher in Liberia, West Africa. This was towards the end of 1982 until the spring of 1983. After the Peace Corps Shelton enrolled in the University of Michigan's Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing. His focus was poetry. In the summer of 1984 he began my work in the national parks, specifically in Yellowstone.

Shelton's career with the N.P.S. began in 1987 when he became a ranger at the West Gate Entrance Station in Yellowstone National Park. He's been working in the national parks ever since and has done everything from working as a front desk clerk at the Old Faithful Inn to his current job as a Park Ranger in the Division of Interpretation and Education in Yosemite National Park. He's worked in Yosemite for the last 15 years, and has been a ranger for over 22 years. He's also a member of Yosemite's Horse Patrol. Shelton learned how to ride horses because of his ongoing research into the Buffalo Soldier history in the Sierra Nevada. He's had some interesting experiences including riding in the Rose Parade representing the Director of the N.P.S., serving as a member of an N.P.S. delegation to study the national parks of China, being the first park service employee to give a keynote address at a National Association for Interpretation conference, and working with Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan on their documentary film, "The National Parks, America's Best Idea". Shelton enjoys writing about the things that move him, and that means telling the stories of interesting people and places, and how one naturally informs the other. He's also fascinated by the power of history, not just the history of a people, but how one's own personal history shapes not only how you perceive, but how you feel about that perception.