August 29, 2020
For Casey Dexter-Lee, it’s hard to put her love for Angel Island State Park into words. It’s where she met and married her husband, James, and the place she’s called home for 20 years.
Not long after graduating from the University of California at Santa Cruz, where she studied history, she started working on the island as a seasonal employee, overseeing 24-hour immersive field trips for kids while in character as Maj. George Andrews, the first commanding officer at the island’s Camp Reynolds during the Civil War. She rose through the ranks, finding ways to tell the island’s eclectic stories, whether giving tours at its immigration station or now as a state park interpreter, helping to provide virtual, educational programming in today’s world.
For her longtime work and contributions, she was recently awarded the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation’s Spirit of Angel Island award.