KANAB - Mike Satter and his pals like to get dirty.

They pick up trash. They build fences. They cart dinosaur bones. They tidy up trails. They dust off ruins.

And they clean up on kudos - the latest a prestigious award for Satter from the Bureau of Land Management for his efforts marshaling an army of volunteers at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

"The intent of Grand Staircase-Escalante volunteers is to give broad exposure to what public-land management is all about," Satter says. "We like to get people out in the field so they can work with the scientists like the paleontologists and archaeologists."

The retired software engineer, one of only eight recipients of this year's Making a Difference award, helped found Grand Staircase-Escalante Partners three years ago to involve locals and others with the science and management of the 1.9 million-acre monument in southern Utah.

Since then, about 1,000 people have paid a minimum of $20 to become members of the volunteer group, and some 120 volunteers go out often on the monument, erecting fences, patrolling the backcountry, working in visitor centers and helping with water and weather studies.

They also help archaeologists dust off ruins and document ancient dwellings and aid paleontologists in removing dinosaur bones, casing them in plaster and sending them to labs.

"The group forms the whole basis in the region for additional opportunities for the public to get involved and engage in activities on the monument," explains David Hunsaker, former monument manager and now deputy director of the BLM's National Landscape Conservation System in Washington. "[Satter] is the heart and soul of volunteer work on the monument that is really starting to take root."

Satter, who lives in an adobe-style house just outside the monument east of Kanab, recalls the monument's bitter birth in 1996, when President Clinton ordered its creation during a news conference at the Grand Canyon.

Utah politicians complained. Many locals rebelled. Some hung Clinton in effigy.

"All the state [BLM] office was hearing was about how much it [the monument] was hated," Satter says. "So we created the volunteer group to show state BLM that there was some grass-roots support for the monument and many willing to protect our national heritage."

Several years ago, after Kane County officials yanked down road signs on the monument banning all-terrain vehicles, Satter worked with Hunsaker so his volunteers could become the monument's official nonprofit support group.

"He's an unbelievably dedicated citizen steward of the monument," says Carolyn Shelton, the interpretive, education and grants coordinator for the monument who nominated Satter for the BLM award. "He gets people involved with hands-on projects so they can find out what's going on."

Last year, Grand Staircase-Escalante Partners contributed 1,200 hours on the monument, according to the BLM.

Why all the labor? It's simple, Satter says. Grand Staircase's cliffs, canyons, trails, mesas, petroglyphs, ruins and dinosaur digs are national treasures.

Forget the politics, he adds. "We just want people to know how flat-out gorgeous the monument is."

And how it's worth getting dirty for.