At A Glance

Wild West Rehab Center Visits Campus

Lending a Helping Hand for Spring Break

Texas Society of Microscopy

WT Meat Science Officiates Contests

JAMP: Accepted!

City of Amarillo Environmental Lab Tour

Polish Delegation

Climate FieldView

Wild West Rehabilitation Center

Visits Companion Animal Club

Wild West Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Amarillo recently visited the Companion Animal Club

to share their mission of serving the animal community and to educate on proper animal care.

Lisa Talley, Education Coordinator, and Tyriek Kimble, volunteer and handler,

were accompanied by many of their exotic animal ambassadors

and attendees were able to engage hands-on and interact with a variety of animals.

"Our speakers were both incredibly passionate and knowledgeable,

and our members truly got to see a unique side of companion animal science,"

shared Ember Reyes, CAC Vice President, Jr. Animal Science.

Spring Break Lending a Helping Hand

Alpha Gamma Rho (AGR) started with aiding the panhandle by doing a "fill the trailer" drive where we tailgated at one of WT's last basketball games.

After putting the word out that we were doing a provisions drive, before we even got out there on Saturday morning, we already had the trailer full.

Alpha Gamma Rho had to use a bigger trailer.

By the end, people donated hygiene products,

canned foods, other food items, clothes, cases of water, and sports drinks, as well as bags of pet food.

The following Sunday, we scattered and organized several thousand articles of clothes into size, type, male or female in AGS 101. We had help from other organizations, sororities,

as well as the Omega Delta Phi fraternity.

That Monday, AGR boys drove all around the panhandle to supply drop-off points

and centers and distributed the provisions.

Fast forwarding to Spring Break, a handful of us went up to Canadian

and helped build pens and fences for livestock producers up there.

That included concreting posts, welding H's together, stretching wire, and setting T-posts.

In addition, we helped run skid steers at supply drop-off points

for producers in moving pallets of feed for livestock.

Then, the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd, we went up to Canadian and aided farmers and ranchers.

We stayed with Boone Begert's, So. Agriculture, family in Allison to make a shorter drive.

His family was very hospitable to us and fed us way too well. Staying there became our base of operation. Our first day, we helped an elderly couple pull clean out a cargo/storage freight that had been burned up. The whole thing was ash with the exception of freezers and metals. After that, we had received a call about another fencing gig, there was a church mens group from Oklahoma that was building traps for producers. We quickly jumped on with them and continued to clear our debris with skid steers, drill T-posts, stretch wire, clip fences. We had 50mph wind that second day and it started raining on us sideways. Everyone one of us had dirt in our eyes, ears, and mouth.

The other side to that was the place we were working

you couldn't get trucks in there where we were working.

We had to get on skid steers and some of us had to walk.

We were in rough terrain.

"This is our backyard, if we don't help these people, who will?

Although a terrible event,

we are glad we got to meet and connect with salt-of-the-Earth people.

We are grateful to lend a helping hand to those who would do the same to us."

Reflection written by Kirby Russell, Sr. Agricultural Business and Economics

L-R: Travis Bohnenblust (Fort Hays State University AGR),

Zebadiah Laca, Fr. Agricultural Business and Economics,

Corey Zimmerman, So. Agricultural Education, Kirby Russell, Sr. Agricultural Business and Economics, Cordel Heuring (Fort Hays State University AGR), Boone Begert, So. Agriculture,

Tres Pennington, Sr. Animal Science, Jett Long, Fr. Agricultural Business and Economics

Featured on NewsChannel 10

Conference of Texas Society of Microscopy

Dr. Nabarun Ghosh, Professor of Biology, and students, Beatriz Burciaga, M.S. Biology, Shaily Goyal, M.S. Biology '22, Anna Nguyen, Jr. Pre-Engineering,

and Marytrinh Nguyen, M.S. Biology, recently attended the 58th annual

Texas Society for Microscopy conference,

in San Marcos, TX.

Dr. Ghosh served on the Executive board

and also delivered a speech on “The benefit of student involvement

and research activities

and the reminiscent of the past

of the Texas Society for Microscopy.”

1. Burciaga, B, Howard, A and Ghosh, N. (2024)

A comparative microscopic assessment on aeroallergen of two cities, Amarillo and Albuquerque.

Texas Journal of Microscopy. Vol. 55, No.1 (2024) 7

2. Ghosh, B., Goyal, S., Santra, I., and Ghosh, N. (2024)

Microscopic assessment of the genetic stability from karyotyping the in vitro regenerated trees

and medicinal and ornamental plant species.

Texas Journal of Microscopy. Vol. 55, No.1 (2024) 7-8

3. Nguyen, N., Ghosh, N. Goyal, S., and Vital. J. (2024)

Microscopic analysis on changes in indoor and outdoor air quality

in relation to insect population as a potential cause of allergic reactions.

Texas Journal of Microscopy. Vol. 55, No.1 (2024) 10-11

4. Nguyen, A., Nguyen, N., Zavala, M., and Ghosh, N. (2024)

Microscopic assessment of the water quality showing the presence of cyanobacteria

and use of Daphnia test system to Detect the effect of atrazine.

Texas Journal of Microscopy. Vol. 55, No.1 (2024) 9-10

Their research was published in the Texas Journal of Microscopy, Vol. 55, No.1 (2024).

WT Meat Science Officiates Contests

Dr. Trent Schwartz, Assistant Professor of Meat Science and Superintendent of Rodeo Austin's Swine Skillathon, recently led a team of animal science undergraduate and graduate students

to assist with Rodeo Austin's Swine Skillathon.

Approximately 40 competitors were placed into one of three divisions (junior, intermediate, senior)

and competed in four skill stations (genetics, management, meats, anatomy/physiology), a written exam. The top five individuals had to conduct an in-person interview

in front of WT students and industry experts.

Back Row (L-R):

Jacob McMillan, Sr. Animal Science, Zane Platter, M.S. Agriculture,

Ryan Heitschmidt, Sr. Animal Science, Will Boyd, M.S. Agriculture

Front Row (L-R):

Megan Eckhardt, Ph.D. Agriculture, Taylor Loeffler, M.S. Agriculture,

Wilsey Wendler, M.S. Agriculture,

Dr. Trent Schwartz

Bryce Hutson, Jr. Agricultural Media and Communication, Eli Mathis, So. Agribusiness,

Campbell Offield, Jr. Agricultural Education,

and Clayton Stevenson, Jr. Animal Science,

recently officiated the 2024 Eastern New Mexico Invitational Meat Judging Contest

in Roswell, New Mexico.

Bryce Hutson, and Caleb Olfers,

Jr. Animal Science,

recently officiated the Tucumcari Innovational

Meat Judging Contest, in Tucumcari, New Mexico.

JAMP: Accepted!

The Joint Admission Medical Program (JAMP) is a statewide scholarship program for pre-medicine students funded by the State of Texas. The program is an undergraduate pipeline program intended to close gaps between participation and success for economically disadvantaged Texans

who are pursuing becoming a doctor.

JAMP collaborates with 69 colleges/universities and 13 Texas medical schools.

Four students from WT have been accepted this year, which is the largest cohort ever accepted from WT!

"JAMP currently accepts 150 students per year, chosen from 68 undergraduate institutions in Texas.

To have four students accepted from WT underscores not only the academic achievement exhibited

by these students, but also the quality of their science courses provided by LEES and CP departments!"

-Dr. Carolyn Bouma, Associate Professor of Biology and JAMP Faculty Director at WTAMU

Amarillo Environmental Lab

ENVR*4404/5404,

Environmental Sampling,

taught by Dr. Erik Crosman,

Assistant Department Head and Assistant Professor of Environmental Science,

recently toured the Amarillo Environmental Lab.

Ben Orr, Sr. Environmental Science,

is the Programs Manager for Water Utilities

for the City of Amarillo. He gave students a tour

of the lab where Amarillo water is tested

for many different pollutants.

The Environmental Laboratory conducts various types of water testing, including analysis for drinking water, wastewater (residential and industrial), stormwater, water wells, playa lakes, PCB oil transformers, emergency management unknown samples, and more.

The Texas Agricultural Lifetime Leadership (TALL) program proudly hosted the 6th delegation

of Polish Agribusiness Leaders since 2011, a program where the Polish study Texas agriculture.

This group traveled from Amarillo to Lubbock, Junction, Kenedy, Panna Maria, San Antonio, Austin, Waco, College Station, Bryan, Lufkin, Houston, East Bernard, and El Campo.

This program has initiated the TALL Emerging Leaders Poland-Texas Study Abroad Program exchanging over 200 university students.

The total exchanged between both programs is over 450 people between Texas and Poland.

There is no doubt Poland is a Pro-American country and ally in Europe!

The group made a stop at the Happy State Bank Academic and Research Building

to take a tour of the building and surrounding facilities and

to partake in a meat tasting done by students and faculty

in the Caviness Meat Science and Innovation Center.

There are three graduates of WT AG in the current TALL Cohort XVIII (2022-2024).

Trent Tyson, B.S. Agribusiness '99, M.S. Animal Science '01

Andrew Sprague, B.S. Agriculture '15

Tyler Randolph, B.S. Agribusiness '08

Climate FieldView Presentation

Bayer held a hands-on FieldView training session for farmers in the area on Tuesday, February 27th in the Piehl-Schaeffer Pavilion. Students and faculty interested in learning more about how farmers are using technology to improve their operations were welcomed.

Climate FieldView is a digital agricultural data platform that helps farmers collect, map, and manage data from every pass across every field in their operation

from virtually any make/model of equipment.

Backed by Bayer Crop Science, FieldView is used by farmers

in over 20 countries on more than 200 million acres worldwide.

FieldView also provides farmers with access to in-season NDVI imagery,

field specific weather reports, easy to use variable rate scripting tools, detailed spray reporting

and robust analysis tools to give farmers instant feedback on the yield impact of different practices.