Middletown, VA ----- Superintendent Diann Jacox, of Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park, has announced her retirement from the National Park Service effective Jan. 3, 2013. Jacox became the park's founding superintendent in March 2004 and has led it for the last eight and a half years. Her retirement will come after almost 34 years with the National Park Service.
During her tenure as superintendent of Cedar Creek and Belle Grove NHP Jacox worked with the park's five legislated partners, as well as the federal advisory commission, to create the General Management Plan, which was completed in June 2011. Jacox stated, "Although it is still very much a start-up operation, I am leaving the park in good stead. Currently the park and its partners are developing park signage and a visitor contact station. This public facility, which will contain exhibits on the national park and its partners, will be located in Middletown, Virginia. In addition, I am very proud of the quality of interpretive programs that we offer to the visiting public, both within the national park and the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District. There is still much work to be done, but much has already been accomplished in collaboration with the park's partners and commission. I have every intention of returning to the area to visit the new visitor facility, once it is up and running in 2013."
Diann began her career with the National Park Service in 1979, as a historian in the Philadelphia Regional Office. In this post she completed a number of research projects to document and list historic sites on the National Register of Historic Places.
With her extensive background in historic preservation, in 1990, Jacox was appointed regional cultural compliance coordinator for the 32 national park units located in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. In this capacity she worked to integrate national park historic preservation requirements into the NPS design, construction and planning programs.
Remaining in Philadelphia, Jacox became the chief historian of Independence National Historical Park in 1995. In addition to managing the historical research program, she also oversaw the park's archives and library.
In January 1999 she was appointed manager of the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site in Washington, DC. While there she also has served as a Congressional Fellow in the office of former Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida).
Diann Jacox is a native of Hertford, North Carolina, grew up in Brooklyn, New York and holds degrees from Fordham University and the University of Pennsylvania. Following her retirement, she will return to the greater Philadelphia area.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
