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Terry Marshall
Last updated on Monday, December 23, 2002
Carlsbad resident Terry Marshall is author and publisher of CARLSBAD, a book New Mexico Magazine called "An effective, positive celebration of Carlsbad. It truly delivers a sense of what life is like for the folks in this area of southeastern New Mexico." Linda Wertheimer, host of "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio said, "Carlsbad brings back everything wonderful about growing up there. It is a great place, and Terry Marshall brings it all together for me. Carlsbad is a beautiful book."
Terry Marshall. Photo by Gary Nickelson. His recent 232-page study, Carlsbad and the WIPP: A Socioeconomic Impact Study, is the most comprehensive analysis of that community's social and economic conditions ever written.
Terry has written on Carlsbad for New Mexico Magazine, Southern New Mexico Magazine, and the Carlsbad Current-Argus. His short stories have appeared in Libido, and in a forthcoming book by John Coyne, Living on the Edge: A Collection of Short Fiction by Peace Corps Writers (Curbstone Press). He is the author of The Whole World Guide to Language Learning (Intercultural Press).
Articles by Terry Marshall
Recently I wriggled my way, not into a cave, but into a goals-setting retreat of Carlsbad Caverns National Park staff - three long days trying to articulate the park’s mission, renew its vision, turn sweeping desires into measurable goals, tasks, and work assignments. We were 24, nearly a quarter of the park staff, including superintendent, division heads, rangers, maintenance men, administrative aides. We talked much about team building, but the underlying theme is how we balance the contradictory mandates of preserving the park’s fragile caves with that of encouraging tourist visitation. Carlsbad Caverns National Park runs five guided off-trail tours. They are so different it’s hard to imagine they are in the same park. Spider Cave delivers an intimate caving experience, wriggling into the hidden underworld, coming face-to-face with earth’s inner secrets. Lower Cave is back stage at the opera. These five off-trail tours take you off the beaten path. Plan time for them. They offer an intriguing glimpse into Carlsbad's world of caving. I’m flat on my belly inching through the crawl space into Spider Cave. My head lamp casts a shadowy glow into this twisting channel, but I can’t raise my head far enough to see where I’m going. The cave ceiling scrapes my back. The cave floor is rocky as a mountain stream, and jagged stones nip into my chest and thighs. I’m dragging myself - there’s not enough room to crawl - trying to follow the soles of the size ten boots ahead of me. The boots disappear around a corner. The ideal visit to Carlsbad Caverns starts by hiking down the natural entrance: We plunge into the earth; light into darkness, summer heat into cool shadow. We're explorers, wending our way to the center of the earth. The air turns musty; water drips. We imagine the cave's first explorer, Jim White, descending by rope, home-made kerosene lantern in hand. We wonder how, without this trail, without these lights, he managed to find his way out safely.
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