The Trail's VIP content creator Kent Schlawin

Lewis and Clark's VIP content creator: Kent Schlawin

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About this article: This article was originally published in the Lewis & Clark Trail Annual Report 2024.

"The Lewis and Clark story is an incredible, indelible
part of America's biography. We need to ensure it's preserved"
-Kent Schlawin

The comments often reveal personal connections with the content

NPS photo

Throughout the National Park Service, volunteers, known as VIPs (Volunteers-In-Parks), serve in many capacities, even filling virtual positions, working from home.

Ten years ago, Kent Schlawin retired from his career in advertising/marketing and joined the staff to help with the Trail’s social media effort. He lives in central Iowa, where he does nearly all his research and content writing.

“I average about 240 articles per year, giving our wide spectrum of followers small daily doses of the multi-faceted, sometimes complex story of the Corps of Discovery,” said Kent. “We have people who are new to Lewis and Clark’s adventure and remember just a few facts from a high school history class. On the other hand, we have followers who are Lewis and Clark scholars and have studied the story for decades. It’s always fun when a follower comments about how they look forward to the daily posts and learning unique aspects of the Trail’s story. And it’s encouraging to know we’re appealing to a new generation, too, as there are several elementary school classes around the country who read each day and discuss the information.”

“We try to cover a lot of topics – from biographies to key events, flora and fauna to modern-day recreational activities, and Native topics to significant sites. After 10 years and over 2,300 articles, I’ve written about most everything. The goal is to get people to think about all aspects of this important chapter in our country’s history and how it impacted American and Native life during the 19th century and what that means for us today.”

Many times, the social media posts are added to our website, creating a catalog of nearly 940 articles, the second most of all NPS sites.

Images from social media posts, creating a unique tapestry of engaging, passionately researched stories to the public on a regular basis.

NPS photo

By the Numbers

1M+ Number of page views on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail's website.
50K Social media followers in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, India, Italy, Netherlands, Brazil, Sweden, and Germany.
511 Posts on Lewis and Clark Naional Historic Trail social media accounts in 2024.
212.3K Post reactions, likes, comments, and replies on Facebook and Instagram.