Episode Details

Wendy Corr:

Well, hello there, folks, and welcome to The Roundup. We're a Cowboy State Daily podcast that focuses on interesting people in the Cowboy State. And we have had so many amazing conversations with people in the Cowboy State, who have just really influenced the way that we look at the world. Well, we're talking today to a guy who has been privileged - and he'll tell you he has been privileged - to live the last - we'd have to stop and count up the number of years that Rick Hoeninghausen has lived in Yellowstone National Park. And that is a rare privilege that people just don't have every day, and Rick and his family have been fortunate to do that.

So Rick is with the marketing department at Xanterra, which works in partnership with Yellowstone, to provide restaurants and hotels and all of these other really important things that we need to go stay in Yellowstone. So, Rick, I should have asked you before we got started, what is your actual title, for a little while longer with Yellowstone, and with Xanterra.

Rick Hoeninghausen:

I'm actually the Director of Sales and Marketing for Xanterra Travel Collection, but specifically in Yellowstone. I'm just Yellowstone, which is great.

Wendy Corr:

Just Yellowstone, and you've been there since - you've been in this job since 1998. You've been able to live and raise your family in Yellowstone since 1998.

Rick Hoeninghausen:

That's true. That's true. Although I started seasonally, just for summer, just before I finished college in 1980. So I go back that far, and spent three summers here - doing laundry of all things, entry level job - and the best, best summer I've ever had in my life. And it was also that summer that I met the gal who I ultimately married, and who I've been very fortunate and blessed to share our family with and raise a family here in Yellowstone over the years.

So yes, this has been a significant, we've been here longer than any other place.

Wendy Corr:

So you and Karen have raised two daughters, and those girls grew up in Yellowstone. Tell me about raising a family in Yellowstone National Park. How was that, for a couple of girls who eventually become teenagers - Dad??

Rick Hoeninghausen:

Yeah, yeah. We actually had them while I was away from the park. One was born in Boise, Idaho while I was working for the Air Force, and the other was born in North Carolina while I was working for the Air Force, so they were actually three and five when we came back.

And at the time, my wife was teaching in Idaho in a small school system, and I happened to be selling real estate then, in that area, too. And the opportunity came up to come back. They brought me back - they being Xanterra - at this point, decided to bring the marketing position back into the park. They had centralized it, and they moved it back to the parks. And my gentleman who was in charge at the time was somebody who was also my first hotel manager when I started working in '88 - amazing coincidence, fate intervening. But bottom line is, the job was available. I was thinking about it. And my wife told me, 'You have to be kidding me. What is there to think about?'

It's Yellowstone, first. And secondly, there was a school at that time, there was a school in Mammoth where we would ultimately live, K through six. And she said, 'You know that school is an amazing school. Now we have children, and if for no other reason, we need to go back for them, for this opportunity to raise them in Yellowstone National Park.'

So, A, it was a great job opportunity. B, the Park is what brought Karen and I together, it's been so much a part of our lives, even when we were away. So the opportun