Mountain Studies to discuss programs
San Juan/Four Corners Native Plant Society will present “Forests, Fens and Medicinal Plants” at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Lyceum Room of the Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College.
The presentation will be led by Tom Grant and Anthony Culpepper of the Mountain Studies Institute.
They will discuss institute projects, including community-based forest management to mitigate wildfire; restoration of fen vegetation and hydrologic flow; and sustainability of osha root harvesting for medicinal plant use.
For more information, visit http://bit.ly/uqBupi.
Livestock judging team attends competition
The La Plata County 4-H livestock judging team earned the right to represent Colorado at the American Royal by placing third at the state 4-H livestock judging competition in June.
They competed against 17 states Oct. 31 in Kansas City, Mo. Ashley Little, Sadie Yates, Michael Semler and Skkye Moreno competed while Stephenie Riegel, Kayla Stevens and Keely Harper served as alternates.
Coaches included Brad Fassett, Beth LaShell and Larissa LaShell. The team placed third overall.
The team placed third in “Beef and Oral Reasons” and fourth in “Sheep and Swine.”
Individually, Little was third overall, third in Beef and fifth in Reasons. Moreno was fourth in Beef and 11th in Reasons while Semler was sixth in Reasons.
Before the American Royal, the team was named Champion Youth team at the Colorado State University contest Oct. 20,where it judged 12 classes and gave eight sets of reasons. During the year, livestock judging members, who range in age from 8 to 18, learn to visually evaluate cattle, sheep, hogs and goats for breeding and market characteristics.
The first meeting for 2014 year will be held at 6:30 p.m. today in the Pine Room of La Plata County Fairgrounds, 2500 Main Ave.
Videographer receives award from CSU
Videographer Joe LaFleur has received an award from the 2013 Colorado State University Media Festival for his video “A Bird for All Seasons.”
The Cammy Grande award is for the Nature category at the expert level and is recognized as outstanding professional work appropriate to the medium and scope of project, demonstrating significant effort, distribution, strong technical quality and content. The CSU Media Festival is a biennial event.
“A Bird for All Seasons” features more than 400 bird species performing to the classical music of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” Viewers can turn on the subtitles to reveal the birds’ names as they watch seasonal behaviors that match the rhythms of the music.
LaFleur is a CSU alumnus with a degree in wildlife biology and a masters in technical communications. He has been collecting video and sounds of birds for more than 20 years.
LaFleur’s production company, Better Birdwatching, helps people learn to identify birds with a series of more than 40 titles that cover all the states and provinces.
For more information, call (888) 414-2837 and visit www.betterbirdwatching.com.
Herald Staff
