WASHINGTON – Travelers who visit many of the country’s national parks next year will surely remember Maine.

The National Park Service announced last week that a picture of the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse in Maine’s Acadia National Park will adorn the 2001 National Parks Pass, which, for $50, gives visitors unlimited access to national parks that charge an admittance fee.

Rep. John Baldacci, D-Maine, was on hand in Washington to unveil the photo taken by Laurence Parent, a professional photographer whose father worked for the park service in Arizona and New Mexico.

“I always knew I represented one of the most beautiful districts in the country,” Baldacci said. “To be selected for the National Parks Pass reinforces the beauty of Maine.”

Baldacci said that having the lighthouse portrayed on the pass is a “tremendous opportunity” for Acadia National Park, which draws 3 million visitors a year.

“It makes Maine part of the Kodak moment,” he said.

On the same day that Baldacci unveiled the photo for the 2001 pass, the park service announced that it would hold a competition for the picture that will adorn the 2002 pass.

Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., pushed the photo contest as part of a 1998 measure that authorized management reforms for the national parks.

Proceeds from the sale of the pass supplement each national park’s budget and enable the park service to develop or expand projects, such as new trails, Thomas said.

“The pass promotes parks as a national treasure,” said Thomas, who chairs the Senate subcommittee with jurisdiction over the national park system.

Any photo taken by an amateur photographer in a national park since Jan. 1 is eligible for the competition. The winning picture will be unveiled in May 2001 and the photographer will receive a trip for four to any national park.

Since the National Parks Pass was launched in April, 200,000 have been sold. This year’s version features a professionally taken picture of a bison in Yellowstone Park. The pass does not cover such other fees as charges for camping, parking, tours and concessions.

Other information is available at the park service’s Web site, www.nationalparks.org, or by calling (888) GO-PARKS.