Why should agencies earmark annual budgets for public education?
What’s the payoff for them? Kintigh: The public, through Congress, has said it wants us to preserve what would otherwise be lost. And the public pays for the work. Agencies, and archeologists generally, have the responsibility to share the results. Ultimately this will come back as support. Everybody knows NPS is there for our parksits role has always been very public. Whereas there’s a perception that the Forest Service is there for the timber industry, BLM for the ranchers and the miners . . . the payoff to the upper managers is that by engaging the public in their archeology programs, they show the agency serving a more direct public purpose. Several years ago, a field school put on an open house at a national forest. A couple thousand people drove up an hour and a half from Phoenixto the utter amazement of the forest supervisor. It puts the agency in a very good light. The managers will see that. The Forest Service Passport in Time initiative is a perfect example. The public has no
