NORDLAND – After 30 years of working for Washington State Parks, Connie Boice is hanging up her ranger hat for good on Saturday.

As she does so, she walks away with an honor that is hers and hers alone.

Boice is the first woman ranger in the Washington State Parks system to retire after working 30 consecutive years.

But she says she’s seen the tides change over the years.

“There were probably less than a handful [of female rangers] when I started, and now there’s 40 out of 200-some rangers,” Boice said Wednesday while strolling around Fort Flagler State Park on Marrowstone Island, where she’s been stationed for the past 10 years after an 18-year stint at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend.

While at Fort Flagler, she’s lived in a former officer’s house at the 800-acre park, where she has maintained a garden, painted a mural on an exposed outside wall in the yard and lived with her hunting dog, Gigi.

“I think it’s been a great career for me,” she said.

“It’s been a perfect fit. I never found anything better I’d rather be doing. I live where people vacation.”

Boice, 55, will devote much of her new-found freedom to similar endeavors, only for herself and not as a public servant.