Students in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Wildlife Club have something special.
They have close ties to School of Natural Resource alumni and to those working in the parks and game field. They are active in their community and outside of it.
But most of all, they are a group of leaders, and Saturday night, they were recognized at the annual banquet at the Isaak Walton League in Bennett, Nebraska.
“This club is an opportunity to get leadership skills, not in the classroom always,” said Larkin Powell, one of the club’s faculty advisors (the other is Dennis Ferrero). “This is a two-pronged night for leadership — it’s a challenge to plan this (the banquet) and pull it off, but they also get recognized for the leadership done.”
More than 25 students were recognized at the event, but a few earned top honors. They were:
• Cole Neibauer, fisheries and wildlife major: The Brian Smith Memorial Outstanding Student Award
• Dakota Altman, fisheries and wildlife major: Ronald M. Case Scholarship
• Chance Vorderstrasse, grassland ecology and management major: Merit award
The group also presented the Wildlife Club Alumni Award to Jeff Obrecht,
interim editor of Game and Fish's Wyoming Wildlife magazine, and the 2016 Howard Wiegers Lincoln Journal Star Conservation Award to Mark Brogie, Creighton Community Public Schools science teacher.
Joe Brandl, survivalist featured on "Naked and Afraid," and SNR alum, gave the keynote address.
“It’s not if you are going to fail,” he told the students. “It’s when. When you fail, fail forward.”
Brandl said he learned three important things from his experience on the show surviving the wild in Africa, and they are the same traits the students will need to thrive in the workforce.
“No. 1: Be adaptable,” he said. “No. 2: pay attention to the details. And No. 3 — it’s the most important — Focus on the things you can control today.”
Over the last month, SNR students also earned these achievements:
Neibauer won first place in the Nebraska Chapter of the Wildlife Society poster contest in March. He presented a poster on the use of iButton temperature loggers in greater prairie chicken nests and how they can be used to limit human interactions with the nest.
“One thing I enjoyed with the poster presentation was listening to the others that had used the same techniques and how similar the results were even with different species,” Neibauer said about his experience.
The competition, open to undergrads and graduate students, was March 9 at the Holiday Inn Convention center in Kearney, Nebraska.
SNR students Catherine Berrick, junior fisheries and wildlife and Spanish major, and Autumn Dunn, junior Environmental Restoration Science, Environmental Studies and Fisheries and Wildlife major, were named to the CASNR Ambassador Team.
They will join six others from the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources and SNR in representing CASNR at recruitment events and providing campus tours.
— Shawna Richter-Ryerson, School of Natural Resources communications associate
More details at: http://go.unl.edu/cqse