A chance to work at the nation’s most visited national park will move Vicksburg National Military Park Superintendent Monika Mayr to the Blue Ridge Parkway in June.

Mayr, the first female administrator of the 110-year-old federal preserve here, is to become deputy superintendent of the federal highway through the Appalachian Mountains that connects the Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains national parks.

“It was a vacancy I applied for,” said Mayr, who notified co-workers and others involved with the park earlier this week. The roadway is visited by 16 million annually, tops among nearly 400 units in the national park system.

Mayr, a 25-year employee of the Department of Interior, said she will be managing a bigger staff than VNMP’s, which she said has averaged between 35 and 45 since taking over as superintendent in 2004.

“I’ll be working with a staff of 235 people and dealing with a lot of communities and counties adjacent to the parkway,” Mayr said, adding her arrival will coincide with the parkway’s 75th anniversary in 2010.

For Vicksburg, where the park preserves siege lines from the Civil War, a temporary replacement will be named by the park service, with a permanent replacement expected to be named later in the year.

“Mayr praised her fellow park employees and volunteer groups such as the Friends of the Vicksburg National Military Park and Vicksburg Campaign for their service to the 1,800-acre park in the past five years.

“I’m going to miss this place,” Mayr said. “It’s hard to leave.”

Key players in the Friends group credited Mayr with playing vital roles in efforts to fund replacements of tablets and monuments in the park.

“She’s quite an administrator,” said Friends’ chairman Landy Teller. “She understands the importance of the national parks. I think so much of her.”

Friends’ executive director Harry McMillin said Mayr had also expressed a desire to be closer to family. He said Mayr was the inspiration for the nonprofit’s formation in 2007.

“This is the biggest attraction that Vicksburg has,” McMillin said of the park, which has been helped by more than $50,000 in donations to help address park infrastructure. “She loves this city and she loves this park.”

“Certainly, everybody is happy for her,” park historian Terry Winschel said, describing Blue Ridge as the “crown jewel” of the park system. “It’s a beautiful, beautiful area. It’s a great opportunity for her.”

Rick Martin, the park’s chief operations officer, said Mayr has enjoyed “a good tenure” and has benefited from her managerial experience that has included positions with the Obed Wild and Scenic River in Wartburg, Tenn., and Biscayne National Park in Miami.

“People move around in the National Park Service,” Martin said. “It’s sad because everyone had established bonds with her.”

Further details of an environmental and cultural assessment by NPS first publicized last April are still expected at a future date. Four alternatives were presented, each presenting variations on how the park’s natural resources and historic features should co-exist.

A highlight last fall was the unveiling of new interpretive tablets to replace some of those removed for their metal during World War II. Then Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, then director of the National Park Service Mary A. Bomar and music superstar Trace Adkins attended the unveiling of the new parkers, paid for with donations.

In November, the park received a “fair” rating, or 67 out of a possible 100, from the National Parks Conservation Association in its annual survey of the federal park system. It suggested the park needed nine extra employees and $716,000 in added funding to achieve proper maintenance of its cultural resources and regular operation of Pemberton’s Headquarters.     

The park here operates on an annual budget of about $2.7 million, including $931,000 in 2008 aimed for specific projects.

Mayr is also an author, releasing “Everglades Betrayal: The Issue that Defeated Al Gore” in January. The book is based on events occurring while she was deputy superintendent at Biscayne National Park in Florida.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com