Many activities available to CSC ag students

Butterfield is vice president of the Nebraska Section of the Society for Range Management and the advisor for the SRM’s student conclave nationally. Younglove is taking over this year as the senior advisor for the National American Pre-Veterinary Medical Association. On campus, each sponsors several clubs that are designed to create friendships and supplement classroom experiences.

The spring semester is especially busy.

In early February, Younglove and six Chadron State students who made up a livestock judging team went to the Fort Worth Stock Show. They judged a dozen classes of cattle, hogs, sheep and horses and gave reasons on eight of them.

The following week, Butterfield and 13 students attended the 58th annual Society for Range Management Meeting, also in Fort Worth. It was handy that both events were in Fort Worth since several of the students participated in both.

Iowa was the destination hotspot in March. Younglove took five CSC students to the Pre-Vet Symposium at Iowa State in Ames the 18th to the 20th while five more students met her there to attend the Mid-Western Section of the American Society of Animal Sciences meetings in Des Moines the 20th through the 23rd.

Competition at the latter event included a written test, a quiz bowl, an oral presentation and a series of hands-on livestock handling activities.

While they aren’t involved in the pre-vet symposium, seniors Anita Bartlett and Rachel Novakovich attended the other events. They were on the livestock judging team, participated in the range management convention and were on the animal science team that competed in Des Moines.

Both are pleased with their experiences at Chadron State.

“It’s been great,” said Bartlett, a graduate of Sandhills High School at Dunning. “Chadron State has been the right size for me. I’ve helped with a lot of projects and learned a lot.”

Bartlett has definitely kept busy while earning range management options in both range livestock production and rangeland business. She is president of the CSC Ag Club and was the secretary of the student conclave in the SRM this past year. In addition, she’s the vice president of Chadron State’s Campus Activities Board, the organization that lines up events for CSC students, and secretary of Cardinal Key National Honor Society.

Novakovich, a graduate of Dayton High School in Wyoming, also has a tight schedule. She’s the Ag Club treasurer and is the CAB president as well as the manager of “the Pit,” the recreation area in the Student Center.

Novakovich said her worst semester in college came as a sophomore when she dropped all activities. “I got really bored and was miserable. I thought about transferring to another college, but looked around and found that Chadron State had the best program for me. I got involved in the organizations again and things have been going really well ever since.”

Several CSC students did some special things at the range management convention in Fort Worth. Three of them delivered papers following research they had conducted: They are:

--Dani Dorshorst of Oberlin, Kan., on the invasion of weeds that frequently follow the burning of slash piles in northwest Nebraska’s timbered areas.

--Matt Lucas of Arnold on his participation in the National Resources Inventory, which is surveying the conditions of privately-owned rangeland in Nebraska

--Jacque Trumbull of Sargent on the influence of pour-on insecticides on dung beetles populations.

In addition, Stephanie Trask of Wasta, S.D., placed 10th among the 22 entries in the impromptu speaking contest. Jamie Eberly of Kilgore and Lucas entered the plant identification contest and all 13 CSC students took the undergraduate range management examination.

More activities are on the way this spring. On April 2, the Ag Club will host a silent lamb and pig auction at the Dawes County Fairgrounds. The program allows 4-H members to purchase livestock for their projects. The minimum bid is $105 and the maximum is $150. Five dollars from each animal that is sold is used to purchase savings bonds that are awarded to the youth whose animal that he or she purchased at the action places the highest at the county fair.

In addition, on Saturday, April 9 the Ag Club members are scheduled to plant 450 trees on a ranch south of Chadron. The following Saturday, the club’s annual Round Robin showmanship competition will take place on campus. Originally designed for Chadron State students, this will be the third year a junior division for youths through high school may also participate. Nearly 20 youths from Crawford to Gordon participated last year.

Butterfield said Chadron State has 68 range management majors. That’s more than a majority of the long-standing programs at major universities have and it continues to climb. Butterfield said traveling around the country and neighboring portions of Wyoming and South Dakota reveals a major reason why CSC’s program is thriving. It’s because these areas possess some of the best rangeland in the world. Although Butterfield won’t say it, another reason undoubtedly is the energetic, enthusiastic leadership that the program has possessed and continues to possess.

Professor emeritus Jim O’Rourke formerly served as president of the state and international range management organizations and is currently the president of the International Rangeland Congress that spans the globe.

The CSC program added a new component last year when wildlife management became a part of the curriculum. At least 20 CSC students, many of them hoping to become conservation officers or habitat or wildlife biologists have declared themselves to be wildlife minors.

Younglove said the program fits well with range management, environmental biology and criminal justice. The Nebraska Game and Park Commission has been very supportive of the program, allowing CSC students to become involved in the releasing of the bighorn sheep in the region this winter and providing assistance for research projects.

Younglove added that numerous ranchers have changed their outlook about wildlife in recent years.

“Some places that were once posted and kept hunters out are now catering to them,” she said. “The old bunkhouse is now a hunting lodge. It generates a large chunk of income for some ranches these days.”