Student Scholarship Recipients Announced at Annual Meeting of Society for Range Management

Feb. 4, 2013

At the Annual Meeting of the Arizona Section of the Society for Range Management in Prescott, AZ on 24 January 2013, the recipients of the Section?s Outstanding Undergraduate Student Scholarship and the Marcelle E. Schmutz Memorial Scholarship were announced.

Kelsey Hawkes (see picture) received the Arizona Section Outstanding Undergraduate Student Scholarship. She was born in Glendale, AZ but raised in Tucson. She became interested in joining the Range program at the end of my second year at the University of Arizona and jumped right into it without any background experiences. She was drawn into the School of Natural Resources and the Environment because of a desire for a career path that included working outside with nature. She has become very interested in Watershed Conservation and Management, and therefore hopes to find a Master's program to pursue those interests. She is a member of the University of Arizona team competing in the Undergraduate Range Management Exam at the SRM Meeting in Oklahoma City in February of 2013, and she was a member on the team last year in Spokane. Finally, Ms. Hawkes won the plant identification contest at the Section Summer Meeting in 2012.

Bridger Skaarer earned the S.Clark Martin Memorial Scholarship by placing 4th out of 203 contestants (top 2%) in the Undergraduate Range Management Exam at the annual meeting in Spokane, WA in 2012. Mr. Skaarer graduated from the University of Arizona in May 2012 with a degree in Rangeland Ecology and Management.

Alanna Riggs and Eric Wagner (see pictures) both juniors at the University of Arizona received the Marcelle E. Schmutz Memorial Scholarship given in memory of Erv Schmutz?s father. Erv was a longtime faculty member in Range Management at UA. Ms. Riggs was born and raised on a working cattle ranch in southeastern Arizona, which is what inspired her to pursue a degree in rangeland ecology and management. She wanted to continue the family tradition and take care of the ranch by combining the wisdom of her grandpa, who has worked the ranch all his life, and the knowledge gained from academia. Mr. Wagner was born and raised in Tucson. He has always had an interest in rangeland ecosystems and the species that inhabit them, and believes that the study of rangelands is important because they are used so extensively as resources. He is planning on pursuing a Master?s degree in rangeland science with an emphasis on botany and plant population dynamics, with the eventual goal of pursuing a doctoral degree in a similar field. Both students are members of the University of Arizona team competing in the Undergraduate Range Management Exam at the SRM Meeting in Oklahoma City in February of 2013.