National park sights featured on White House ornaments

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Working as part of a wildland fire crew in Zion National Park over two summers gave Shannon Eberhard a unique vision of the natural wonder of the land in southern Utah. Her background as a fine arts student at Southern Utah University gave park officials a creative idea. Zion officials asked her to submit an idea when they were given the task of providing a Christmas ornament for the White House Christmas tree. "I had never thought of painting a Christmas ornament," said Eberhard. "It was kind of a challenge." She decided that painting a park scene at night would be more "Christmassy" than a day depiction. The result is a blue night sky with stars and gold used to portray the famous snow-dusted land formations of Zion. The ornament, and 10 others from Utah National Park Service sites, are hanging on the "Official White House Christmas Tree" in the Blue Room as part of the "Holiday in the National Parks" program. In all, 347 ornaments from National Park Service sites across the country were submitted. Like the one from Zion, many were created by National Park Service employees. Glen Canyon National Recreation Area ranger Cynthia Adams painted two of the ornaments. One of moonrise over Lake Powell and the other an abstract image of the world's tallest natural bridge, Rainbow Bridge. Rainbow Bridge National Monument is located within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Backcountry ranger Cynthia Beyer created the ornament for Canyonlands National Park. The ornament includes the familiar landscapes of the park, including images of the Great Gallery pictograph panel in the Horseshoe Canyon area of Canyonlands. Daniel Cloud, who works as the chief of maintenance for Bryce Canyon National Park, painted Thor's Hammer, Natural Bridge and the Douglas fir trees of Wall Street (a slot canyon on the Navajo Loop Trail) on the ornament from that park. Kristy Ferguson, a maintenance worker at Timpanogos Cave National Monument, painted formations from the cave on an ornament that site submitted for the White House Christmas tree. Local artists also played a role in creating the ornaments from Utah. Roy High School art teacher Jeff Lowe painted a stunning image of the Jupiter and No. 119 replica steam engines -- the first trains to meet at Promontory Point -- for the Golden Spike National Historic Site ornament. Patricia Priebe-Swanson used watercolor and ink to produce some larger-than-life depictions of Chimney Rock and Navajo Dome in Capitol Reef National Park. Lorraine Chure painted a dinosaur, a peregrine falcon, fossils, petroglyphs, a river rafter on the Green River and an image of Split Mountain for the Dinosaur National Monument ornament. Other National Park Service sites in Utah submitting ornaments include Arches National Park and Natural Bridges National Monument. Like many of the other ornament artists, Eberhard traveled to the White House for a ceremony to unveil the work. She was amazed by the range of ornaments for the tree. "There was a huge variety of styles and a lot of different types of artists," she said. "Some were really interesting and some were pretty simple. It was great to see the work everybody put into the ornaments." The collection of National Park Service Christmas tree ornaments will not be returned to the artists or the parks. Staffers at the White House will keep the pieces of art for future use. View some of the 347 ornaments submitted by National Park Service sites for the White House Christmas tree at www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/2007/holiday-ornaments.html Brett Prettyman can be reached at brettp(at)sltrib.com (Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)