New Mount St. Helens Manager Named

Sat., March 18, 2000

From Staff

A U.S. Bureau of Land Management official has been named manager of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

Clifford D. Ligons, 50, will begin his new job with the Forest Service in Amboy on May 7 - shortly before the 20th anniversary of the May 18, 1980, eruption that killed 57 people, destroyed 230 square miles of forest and sent a cloud of ash over the region.

He will succeed Gloria Brown, who left the monument last fall after almost two years to become supervisor of the Siuslaw National Forest in Oregon.

Ligons will take over a monument that is struggling with a budget shortfall that prompted the Forest Service to announce recently it would close one of three visitor centers around the mountain. After a public outcry, Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck said the center at Silver Lake will stay open through this summer.

For the past two years, Ligons has been area manager of the BLM’s Spokane district, which covers most of Eastern Washington.

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