Retired national parks ranger enjoys grand sendoff as hundreds pay tribute in Richmond

Around 300 people gathered to pay tribute to Betty Reid Soskin, Richmond’s beloved national park ranger who recently retired at the age of 100, in a moving sendoff at Richmond’s Craneway Pavilion.

Surrounded onstage during the April 16 event by officials including Chuck Sams, director of the National Park Service, Soskin thanked the audience and the Park Service in a brief speech. Sams presented Soskin with a plaque in the shape of the arrowheads worn by park rangers on the shoulders of their uniforms.