Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park Superintendent Shawn Benge is looking forward to Monday night’s final speaker in the 2009 Moccasin Bend Lecture Series.

That speaker, Dirk Kempthorne, U.S. Secretary of Interior from 2006 to 2009, initiated the national parks’ Centennial Challenge, a public/private partnership to encourage visitation and to repair the nation’s parks for the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016.

“This park has benefited from that by about $100,000 a year,” Mr. Benge said. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Mr. Kempthorne’s vision and commitment helped him in 2009 obtain the largest operating budget for national parks in their history — $2.5 billion, according to National Park Service records. The 2010 operating budget, passed just days ago, now takes that record, totaling $2.7 billion.

Mr. Kempthorne began his public service in 1985 as the mayor of Boise. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992. Six years later he was elected governor of Idaho and re-elected in 2002. In May of 2006, he was confirmed as the 49th secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Mr. Kempthorne could not be reached for comment, but Shelley Andrews, executive director of the Friends of Moccasin Bend National Park, called him “a true outdoorsman.”

“The secretary frequently highlighted our national parks as a great American treasure and encouraged families and children to get outdoors and explore our lands,” she said.