Visit With Respect is happy to announce the completion of the new Junior Ambassador Booklet, and introduce our new Junior Ambassador mascot: Sage the Horned Toad Lizard!
History of the Junior Ambassador
A Junior Ambassador is a role specific for school-age students who want to learn more about respectful visitation. Young visitors who come into the Bears Ears Education Center and students in this region are welcome to become Junior Ambassadors. After completing the booklet they can earn a sticker and feel encouraged to guide their friends and family to also be respectful visitors of the landscape. In this way, the Junior Ambassador Booklet is a key way to educate and engage students and young visitors alike.
The original booklet was created in 2018 and revised in 2022, and has since served as an important educational resource for children aged 6-12 to learn about respectful visitation in the Bears Ears region. The booklet is a self-guided learning experience combining science education with human history, and Visit With Respect reminders relating to the experiences they may have while visiting Bears Ears. The activities include matching games, word search, and coloring which all tie back to earning a Junior Ambassador sticker.
One of our Visit With Respect guidelines is Guide Children Through Sites. Visitors with children can take this teachable moment and talk to their children about cultural site awareness, including being mindful of their footsteps, being safe around fragile structures, and being aware of the environment they are in. We thought the best way to highlight this guideline was to create a program tailored specifically for young visitors to the Bears Ears region.
Bringing fresh perspectives to the program
Our program had the opportunity to work with art scholars at Whitehorse High School in Montezuma Creek, Utah, to create phenomenal new artwork for the Junior Ambassador booklet. Gabrielle Dance (senior) and Megan Collins (junior) produced beautiful artwork which was converted into graphic images by another scholar on their team. Over the span of five months between September 2025 and January 2026, the art scholar team had monthly check-ins with the Visit With Respect team to create a finalized version of the Junior Ambassador Booklet. Gabrielle Dance demonstrated excellent leadership of the creative team, which ultimately secured her selection as the 2026 Visual Arts Sterling Scholar in March 2026.
“We wanted to work with students who grew up in this region and have a deep connection to the landscape,” Visit With Respect Director Semira Crank says. “Since one of the components of Visit With Respect is to preserve these spaces for future generations, we thought it was only right to have the scholars help contribute to the artwork as they will be the next caretakers of these landscapes.”
The updated booklet features the new mascot that imparts knowledge to students: Sage the Horned Toad Lizard. He replaced the former canyon wren mascot because the horned toad lizard is a more commonly seen wildlife creature around the region. The name “Sage” was chosen to represent another keystone species on the landscape, and lend Sage the Horned Toad Lizard Mascot the traditional character trait the sage plant embodies: wisdom.
Entering a new decade of Visit With Respect with an updated booklet
The art scholars delivered visionary work that the Visit With Respect program will continue to use for the next decade. We hope kids and parents enjoy it for years to come thanks to these incredible students and support from the Bluff Community Foundation. The booklet and sticker are now available at our Bears Ears Education Center in Bluff. Stop by and get yours! You can also download the booklet and learn more about Visit With Respect Ambassadors on the Ambassadors page.