I am soon to be an ex-employee of the State of Georgia. I am not unlike a lot of others who lost jobs last week as cutbacks occurred statewide.

My site has been cherished by many and will continue to be (for the three days a week that it is open), but guided tours for schools or anyone visiting the parks will no longer be available due to staff cutbacks.

I can and have been offered positions that paid more money. This is not about the money, but I do have bills to pay, I am diabetic, morbidly obese, have blood pressure and heart problems. I could probably retire on disability. I had hoped to retire with the Department of Natural Resources.

My salary was a little bit less that $18,000 a year. But I give Georgia school children something that is so rare and valuable today. I give guided tours. I am a storyteller. I have been called The Storyteller of New Echota.

I bring history to life at New Echota. Over 10 years ago, working as a supervisor in an industrial setting, my salary was much more than my current salary. I know about cutting back expenses. My belt has been adjusted many times.The eight years I have worked at the park have been some of the best years of my life.It has not been all glamor and glory. I swept floors, cleaned restrooms, painted buildings, and cooked on an open hearth.

I have given tours in the rain and frigid cold temperatures. But I told my stories. Children will remember me and my stories long after I am gone.

A family visited me last year at the park. The mother walked up to me and smiled and said “Mr Greene, you are the reason we are visiting your site.” She proceeded to tell me how seven years ago her then 7-year-old daughter came to New Echota and I was her tour guide. She had never forgotten me or my historical stories. I am sure I will never know all the lives that I have touched thanks to the state of Georgia and the DNR.

But my voice, my lessons, and my stories will cease to be told at New Echota. Just like The Great Cherokee People, I too will be removed by the State of Georgia. I refuse to leave in a Trail of Tears. Many teachers have taken my tours. I have given tours to Cherokee Children. One Cherokee mother told me that I was telling her children stories that she herself did not hear until she was in college. She thanked me for that.

I have spoken with people from all over the world. One Sunday afternoon, I even gave a tour to Vince Dooley. If I had the resources and my bills could be paid, I would volunteer my services to New Echota, the Vann House and Etowah Indian Mounds.

Oh, Georgia what has been done to you that golf courses and so many other things are funded at the expense of the education of our children.

Georgia parents, please, please don’t forget to tell your children that the Cherokees never lived in teepees and that nobody’s great great grandmother was ever a Cherokee “princess.” Because now I will not be there to tell them for you. I will no longer have the chance to tell them so many important things.

My last official day at New Echota will be Saturday June 13. (My 33rd wedding anniversary and my son’s 29th birthday.)

In support of keeping the historical sites open, I would like to invite all the city, state and local government officials to come and visit with me and let me give them one of my last tours at New Echota. It promises to be a most marvelous event. See what I have done for your school children the past eight years and see what will be missing if my voice is silenced. I know I am speaking as just one man. I am not selfishly thinking I am the only one that has lost his or her job.I stand alone but represent all those who are now losing their voices as Georgia state historical site tour guides.

Gary A. Greene, of Rome, has worked as a tour guide at the New Echota Historic Site for the past eight years.