COBURG (AP) - Interior Secretary Gale Norton used a visit to a luxury motor home factory on Thursday to call for more volunteers to help improve the nation's parks, forests and other recreation areas.

Norton, one of several Bush administration cabinet members to visit the Northwest this year, was touring a Monaco Coach Corp. manufacturing plant as part of the Department of Interior's "Take Pride in America" initiative.

The program supports and recognizes volunteers who work to improve the country's public parks, wildlife refuges and historic sites, such as Crater Lake National Park and Fort Clatsop in Oregon.

"We're trying to get people motivated to care for public lands," Norton said, adding the nation's parks now have about 200,000 volunteers. "We'd like to double that," she said.

Monaco, the nation's top manufacturer of diesel-powered luxury motor homes, is a charter member of the volunteer initiative, which includes placing "Take Pride in America" bumper stickers on its motor homes.

Norton said the program's theme, "It's your land, lend a hand," emphasizes youth involvement "to get kids to recognize that the public lands are their responsibility."

Following the Monaco visit, Norton boarded one of the company's $450,000 motor homes for a trip to Redmond, where she addressed the 6,000-member Family Motor Coach Association annual convention.

"I'm sure that Lewis and Clark would have loved to have one of your RVs," Norton said to more than 1,000 members of the Family Motor Coach Association.

In a brief speech that praised recreational vehicles as a way to tour the country's public lands, Norton focused on the Bush administration's efforts to improve the National Park system.

She touted a proposal currently before Congress to expand Oregon's Fort Clatsop National Memorial and rename it Lewis and Clark National Historical Park.

The Interior Department manages about one in every 5 acres of land in the nation, including 388 parks and 544 wildlife refuges.