Red Tails July/August 2026
- naomihanvey
- Jul 7
- 4 min read
Click below to download a PDF of the newsletter:
ARK Program 2026
by Gayle Talbot, President
The month of May was extremely busy for our Audubon Refuge Keepers program for fourth graders. Margaret Schiffner is the ARK program chair, and in January, she begins scheduling the school presentations and two days of Columbia National Wildlife Refuge bus tours. We chose five elementary schools this year: Longview, Lakeview, Sage Point, Groff and Connell; but many others would love to have this FREE program and field trip!
I want to give a shout-out to our ARK Volunteer of the Year: Jackie Chase! She was there for every Soda Lake field study and every school’s classroom presentation this year. Margaret Schiffner was the classroom slideshow presenter about US Wildlife Refuges, and Jackie, Twila Herrin, Louis Logan, and I helped with table studies (Birds, Nests, and Touch). Steve Stiger was the bus guide and narrator on eight of the nine tour dates this year. Field study helpers at Soda Lake, after the tours, included Louis Logan (also a tour guide), Steve Stiger, Jane Stiger, and Jackie Chase. I had a couple days as a tour guide myself (with my photographer friend Paula Zanter-Stout on the first tour). We luckily recruited Kaley Wisher from the Columbia Basin Conservation District to be a tour guide!
The children were so delighted to go on a real field trip to a place they had never seen before and would probably never know about without the ARK program. Some of the sightings on the various trips included Red-winged Blackbirds, Great Egrets, Kingfishers, Great Blue Herons, Red-tailed Hawks, a Cinnamon Teal pair, Cliff Swallow, CA Quail, Western Kingbird, Northern Harriers, Mallards, Bald Eagles, Coyotes, Mule Deer, Yellow-bellied Marmots, and even a Turtle sunning on a rock. After the long morning, the children would go to Potholes State Park for a picnic and more bird sightings!
CBAS Annual Meeting May 29, 2026
by Gayle Talbot, President
Scholarship Chair John Moody asked the Ron Van Nurden Scholarship recipients to help us pick an earlier date this year! On Friday, May 29, four of the five recipients came to Margaret Schiffner’s lovely Mae Valley home to receive their awards. Levi Kukes was already working in South Dakota, so we are including part of his interesting letter to explain his summer work. Jared Goetz came from Pullman, picked up his dad in Coulee City on the way, and arrived still in scrubs from his veterinary training! CBAS has proudly partnered with Jared for eight years and this coming year will be his last to obtain his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from WSU. Other attendees included returning scholarship recipients Ellinor Sonnichsen and Walker Fulk and their family members. We were pleased to meet Alexandra Estrada Rangel, our new recipient, also with her family. The weather was still quite windy after the “Storm of the Decade” the night before, so the 19 of us gathered in Margaret’s dining room. It was cozy, and we loved getting to know our college students and their families. We will be featuring each of them in future issues.
Levi Kukes' Letter to CBAS
I am beyond grateful to be writing this letter in acceptance of the Ron Van Nurden Memorial Scholarship for the 2026-2027 school year. Your support over the past year has made a huge difference in my college experience, and has allowed me to explore a variety of opportunities that I would not have otherwise been able to. I am, however, remiss to be missing your annual meeting for the first time since first applying for this scholarship in 2024. This summer I am working as a Forest Service Biology Crew Technician, specializing in plant identification, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This biology crew is investigating the relationship of grass succession, health, and annual growth with grazing and drought treatments.
My primary responsibilities so far have been related to monitoring growth, collecting measurements, and assisting with soil sampling. My crew has also been working on plant identification and will collect cover estimates for each species over the next few weeks. Our measurements will be analyzed alongside measurements from the past four years, and will provide ranchers with a template for utilization after different doubt intensities and timing.
Even though I may not be present at the meeting this year, I have more than felt your presence over the last school year. This year I was able to engage in a variety of classes, clubs, and research opportunities, some of which will carry over to next semester. I am happy to report that I maintained a 4.0 GPA over the last school year and truly enjoyed all of my classes. I am an active member in the Range Club and Society for Ecological Restoration. Last February I was able to attend the annual Society for Rangeland Management meeting and participated in the plant identification contest, Undergraduate Rangeland Management Exam, and Extemporaneous speaking. All of the contests taught me a lot, and gave me opportunities to connect with professionals in the field of rangeland. The most exciting portion of the last two semesters, however, was getting to engage in research alongside Dr. Timothy Prather and Dr. Senay Ugur. Last semester I launched my first research project on utilizing micropropagation in restoration. I used micropropagation, a common agricultural technique, to produce clones of Catabrosa aquatica (a rare semi aquatic grass) for restoration. I am thrilled to be investigating this topic, and I am grateful for this opportunity.
Thank you all so much for your continuous support. I cannot even convey to you the
difference you have made in my life! I am, again, very disappointed to be missing your meeting as it is a highlight of my summer. I hope to see you all next year and I will have plenty of stories to share!
Sincerely,
Levi Kukes
