This year, The University of Rio Grande was well represented at one of the largest natural resources conferences Ohio has to offer - The Ohio Fish and Wildlife Conference. As one of the three student chapters of The Ohio Chapter Wildlife Society (OCTWS), Rio was fortunate to be asked to operate and find donations for the raffle table. As the President of our chapter's TWS club, I was a bit nervous because our program is small; thus, there are a limited amount of available volunteers to help out with this project. But, I was pleasantly surprised when I showed up at the carpool meeting area in Nelsonville at 6am to find approximately 10 eager Rio students ready to volunteer! Andy Montoney, State Director of the Wildlife Services, asked us to seek out donations from any local vendors in the weeks leading up to the conference. All in all, club members were able to find donations such as personal photography, two homemade blue bird boxes, gift certificates, a walking stick, and many more items.
Jerry with a blue bird box that our student chapter built. Our professor, Don Althoff and his wife, Karen, were kind enough to design the box and let us use their tools. Also, some photography I donated.
It was very rewarding to see people choose my photography in the raffle!
Ultimately, everybody had a great time running the table, speaking to employers, and viewing presentations. I had a chance to step away from the table to view a particularly interesting topic for me presented by Roger Williams titled, "Using fire to restore forests and wildlife communities." Already looking forward to next year's conference as we've been asked to operate the raffle for th second year!
Great work!
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