August 25 , 2009
For Immediate Release

Public TV and Shiloh National Military Park Host
Free Screening of “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea”

WKNO, in cooperation with Jackson, TN public television station WLJT and Shiloh National Military Park, is holding a special screening of the upcoming, highly anticipated documentary series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea – A Ken Burns Film. This event is free and open to the public and will be held on Thursday, September 10 at 6:00 p.m. at the Shiloh Battlefield Visitors Center.

This screening will feature a sixty-minute preview that presents highlights from the twelve-hour film, set to premiere Sunday, September 27 at 7:00 p.m. on PBS stations WKNO/Channel 10 and WLJT/Channel 11. Light refreshments will be provided.

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, a six-part documentary series directed by Ken Burns and co-produced with his longtime colleague, Dayton Duncan, who also wrote the script, is the story of an idea as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical: that the most special places in the nation should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone.

Filmed over the course of more than six years in some of nature’s most spectacular locales — from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska — the documentary is nonetheless a story of people from every conceivable background: rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so, reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy.

The broadcast of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea on WKNO is sponsored by Outdoors, Inc..

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea is a production of Florentine Films and WETA Washington, DC.. National funding is provided by is provided by General Motors; Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund; Corporation for Public Broadcasting; The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations; Park Foundation, Inc.; Public Broadcasting Service; National Park Foundation; The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; The Pew Charitable Trusts; and Bank of America.

Located near Savannah, TN, Shiloh National Military Park is one of the oldest National Military Parks, established by Congress in 1894 to preserve the site of the Civil War battlefield.  It also incorporates the Shiloh National Cemetery and the Shiloh Indian Mounds, as well as the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center in nearby Corinth, MS. The park is open every day except Christmas Day from dawn until dusk. Visit the park website for operation hours and more information at www.nps.gov/shil.

WKNO is a non-profit, private foundation serving the Mid-South for more than 50 years.  An important community resource, WKNO uses the power of non-commercial public broadcasting to provide the Mid-South with quality educational and cultural programs that inform, entertain, and inspire.

WLJT is committed to helping close the knowledge gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children. Serving 16 counties in West Tennessee (outside of Memphis), WLJT provides educational television programs, community outreach events, and training for parents, childcare providers and teachers in this quest to help our children get “ready to learn.”

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