OSU Range Club earns national recognition among peers
For the members of the Oklahoma State University Range Club it is about networking, but it is always nice to bring home a little hardware in the process.
Recently, at the 2016 Society for Range Management Annual Meeting, Technical Training and Trade Show in Corpus Christi, Texas, the OSU Range Club did both. Club members competed with university range programs from Mexico, Canada and the United States and won 1st place in the Display Board competition.
OSU Range Club President, Jack Tidwell, said the display board analyzed nine wildlife species from the members’ home states of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas.
“We selected this topic because we felt that describing wildlife species and their habitats was an appropriate way to address the meeting’s theme of ‘Rangelands and Wildlife,’” he said. “We also felt that showing the diversity of our members’ backgrounds and the knowledge of different ecosystems that they bring with them to our club was important.”
The annual meeting is typically circled on OSU Range Club members’ calendars well in advance of the event.
“We put an intensive amount of work into our preparation for these competitions at the National SRM Meeting,” said Tidwell. “Our first place display board took an effort by the entire team in regards to innovation, creation, organization and in presenting its information to achieve its top standing.”
The eight-member team is made up of Tidwell, Marlow, Oklahoma; Hannah Stevens (treasurer), Ardmore, Oklahoma; Jeremy Schallner (vice president), Enid, Oklahoma; Corban Hemphill (secretary), Hondo, Texas; Tanner Large, Okmulgee, Oklahoma; Duel Brown, Dewey, Oklahoma; Ethan Marshall, Buhl, Idaho; and Dee Vandaveer, Blanchard, Oklahoma.
Schallner placed 2nd in the Undergraduate Range Management Exam, and Hemphill and Schallner gave presentations on their undergraduate research.
“The OSU Range Club is continually ranking in the top three range clubs in the country,” said Karen Hickman, club advisor and professor in OSU’s Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management. “The opportunities and networking the students participate in as Range Club members enhances their career placement potential.”
In fact, at this year’s meeting one of the students was hired by the Bureau of Land Management for an internship in Elko, Nevada, another will be working for the USDA in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and third member received an offer to enter the graduate program at New Mexico State University.
“All of the Range Club members have career related jobs for this upcoming summer—a true testament to their quality,” Hickman said.
While the club is proud of its recent successes and long-standing tradition of excelling in the field, it will not be long until next year’s meeting in Saint George, Utah.
“I believe our success in recent meetings shows a sign of great drive and determination by our department, advisor, coaches and members,” Tidwell said. “We have a group of very committed members that have made last year and this year a success, and I am sure this level of achievement will continue as long as we have members with this much passion for range management.”
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