This Land, Your Land

The Knoxville News Sentinel is among those keeping an ear to the ground to learn whether President Barack Obama will attend the September 2 rededication at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. If he does, he'll be the first U.S. President to visit since FDR dedicated the park on September 2, 1940, six years after it opened.

The rededication ceremony is part of the park's 75th anniversary celebration.

About 2,000 invited guests are expected at the ceremony, including dignitaries, park supporters, employees, former employees and their families, and former Civilian Conservation Corps workers. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the governors of North Carolina and Tennessee, all four senators from North Carolina and Tennessee, most of the members of Congress whose districts surround the park and country singer Dolly Parton are expected to attend, the newspaper says.

But Obama's plans are not set. "While we have received word that the secretary will attend," National Park Service spokesman Bob Miller said in a statement, "the park has not received any direct communication from either the White House or The Department of (the) Interior regarding the president's attendance."