Lifelong devotion to the Smokies drove departing board chair’s service

Geoff Cantrell can’t help but love Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It’s written into his DNA.

On his mother’s side, the trait traces back eight generations to Hazel Creek, where his ancestors Moses and Patience Proctor were the first European settlers and Horace Kephart and Jack Coburn served as the witnesses to his great-great-grandparents’ marriage ceremony. On his father’s, it comes from the green-and-gray uniform his dad wore during his decades-long park ranger career in the Smokies. Cantrell spent his childhood as a resident of the national park, living with his parents and eventually five younger siblings in park housing at Elkmont, Twentymile, Big Creek, and Deep Creek.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Cantrell, now 65, grew into a man with a deep appreciation for all the Smokies has to offer, and a commitment to preserving it. For more than 20 years, Cantrell has served as a member of the Smokies Life board of directors—most recently as its chairman—and will leave a legacy when he steps down from the role this month.

“I look back on a couple of decades of something that was very fulfilling personally, something that contributed to a national park that I love, and that in itself is very humbling,” Cantrell said. “I don’t have one single moment or milestone—it’s all just a continual flow of good things.”

Those who knew Cantrell when he was young might have predicted he’d follow in his father’s footsteps to a career with the National Park Service. When he was little, he recalled, his grandmother made him a miniature ranger uniform to wear while he hung out at the information booth, and even as a four-year-old, Cantrell could confidently answer visitors’ questions about fishing regulations, bathroom locations, and firewood rules.

“But when people would ask me, ‘Do you want to grow up to be a park ranger?’ I would say no, because I felt like I had already done that,” Cantrell said.

Instead, he gravitated toward the written word. Except for the stint in Deep Creek, close to the town of Bryson City, his childhood was an isolated one. There were no neighbors for miles around, and the nearest town was sometimes more than 20 miles away. But home was always full of books, with the local newspaper delivered daily and magazines arriving regularly—his parents subscribed him to Ranger Rick’s Nature Magazine, and his uncles would hand down their old Hot Rod Magazine issues.

“When I was 12, I read two books that were pretty influential for me,” he said. “One was Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders, because it was something written about places I knew and people whose descendants were my classmates and people who were my family. And then the very first Foxfire book, about homesteading and simple living. Those two were really important and fostered a lot of that interest in the outdoors and Southern Appalachian history and culture, which I still carry with me.”

Writing came naturally to Cantrell. As a communications student at the University of North Carolina Asheville he studied journalism, writing for the school’s newspaper and magazine and then becoming the regional editor for the Asheville Citizen, which later became the Asheville Citizen-Times. Cantrell was responsible for coordinating coverage of the 16 counties outside Buncombe in the paper’s coverage area. Following the 1995 death of writer John Parris, who penned the paper’s Roaming the Mountains column, Cantrell filled the role of local flavor columnist with Mountain Folkways, which he wrote until leaving the newspaper in 2003.

“I look at an index of headlines [from the year 2000] and see columns on the natural beauty of the area, the ‘sticks and stones,’ as it were,” Cantrell wrote in his New Year’s column published January 3, 2001. “There were tales that got better with the telling and wonderful people and places. I wrote of trout and trout fishing, unique mountain festivals and other special events. Mountain Folkways lets me share books with you, gives me the chance to introduce you to people, take you to spots on the map and enjoy some of the experiences to be found here.”

A cruise through the column archives reveals Cantrell’s love of the people, places, and legends that make the Great Smokies what they are. He writes about the 1921 felling of the largest American chestnut tree on record (as recorded by the Journal of Heredity in 1915, it was 75 feet high and more than 33 feet in circumference seven feet up from the ground) near Big Creek, and how it must have “loomed large in the memories of those who grew up underneath its canopy.” He brings to life the Decoration Day tradition on the North Shore of Fontana Lake, “where the memories still stand as thick as a tangle of rhododendron,” concluding that, “I’m glad my kinfolk in Proctor Cemetery on Hazel Creek rest quietly rather than in the fluorescent glare of a shopping center,” as might have been the case had the park not been created. And he gives the spotlight to the often-excoriated timber rattlesnake, highlighting its startling reluctance to bite and its important place in the ecosystem. “I have to appreciate anything dangerous that gives you a fair warning,” he writes.

After leaving the Asheville Citizen-Times, Cantrell served as a contributing editor for Smoky Mountain Living Magazine in Waynesville and then moved east for a position as public affairs officer for the NC Wildlife Resources Commission. He remained in Raleigh for nearly a decade before returning west for a position as media relations manager at Western Carolina University, where he stayed for seven years before leaving for his current role as public relations and communications director for Givens Communities, a nonprofit senior care group based in Asheville, North Carolina.

Throughout these seasons of professional growth and change, one thing has remained constant: Cantrell’s devotion to Smokies Life. He has held a spot on the organization’s board of directors for all but a couple years since first joining it in December 2000, always willing to offer his expertise as a writer and editor in support of the park he loves. 

“If anyone has a favorite Smokies Life book or is a fan of Smokies Life Journal, they have Geoff to thank for steadfastly supporting those projects,” said Laurel Rematore, CEO of Smokies Life from 2016 to 2024.

Cantrell’s familiarity with the North Carolina side of the park and its gateway communities afforded the board an important perspective, given that board membership, like park visitation, has often drawn more heavily from the Tennessee side. Meanwhile, his heritage as the son of a Smokies ranger and experience as an avid fisherman gave him an encyclopedic knowledge of the park’s history, flora, and fauna.

Though he doesn’t plan to sign up for another term once his current one ends this month, Cantrell said Smokies Life “is a big part of my life and will continue to be, even though I won’t be on the board.” He hopes his departure will make room for someone new to invigorate the body with a fresh combination of experience, skill, and personality.

Cantrell has served as board chairman for the past two years, leading Smokies Life through both a rebrand and a crucial transition period as Rematore announced her retirement and the selection process unfolded that brought current CEO Jacqueline Harp to the helm. Cantrell provided “strong leadership continuity during that critical period,” Rematore said.

But when Cantrell was asked to describe that leadership style, he was characteristically humble.

“When you’re sitting in a room full of gifted people, you let them express themselves. You encourage that,” he said. “My fellow board members are incredible. They’re the ones that really made things happen, and I sit up there and bang the gavel and say, ‘I call this meeting to order.’”

In Rematore’s opinion, there’s more to it than that.

“Geoff is a quiet yet very perceptive leader,” she said. “He’s always happy to let others speak their piece and manages group discussions well. In a word, I would describe Geoff’s approach as ‘gentle,’ as he had a light touch in directing my work, which I appreciated.”

Cantrell’s approach has served Smokies Life well, with the organization continuing to post strong sales numbers that allow it to give generously to the park, with which it continues to partner in new and innovative ways. Over the years, Smokies Life has developed a larger staff to shoulder a larger workload as the park’s needs have grown, increasing its presence in park stores, visitor centers, and gateway communities. Cantrell remains optimistic about the future of both Smokies Life and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

“We’ve built a good foundation,” he said, “and it just keeps building.”