“We are not shooting sports, it’s not that kind of range. It’s home, home on the range,” Range Club President and Agricultural Business major, Tevyn Baldwin, said. “That’s what we have to tell people.”
Imagine the empty landscapes found all across the state of Wyoming, from different soils, livestock, water, wildlife, grasses and even insects. That is the foundation of what range management is, and the central focus of UW’s Range Club.
“Anything you see when you look out at Wyoming’s landscapes, that is exactly what range management is,” Baldwin said.
Range Club is the student chapter of the Wyoming section of the Society of Range Management. According to the Society for Range Management Wyoming Section’s website, members “are committed to providing scientifically sound and practical management of Wyoming’s rangeland resources and uses.”
Members of Range Club have the chance to participate in a variety of events, competitions, contests and other skill and contact-building occasions.
Contests include Plant ID, The Undergraduate Range Management Exam, Extemporaneous Speaking, Range Cup and Graduate Presentations and Papers and Posters.
Through the Wyoming section of the Society of Range Management’s professional oversight of UW’s student chapter Range Club, members are offered networking opportunities, participation in international range management competitions and a chance to meet professionals within the range management industry.
Baldwin expressed that students who are members of Range Club are assisted in transitioning from college into actual careers and jobs within range management through those provided networking opportunities.
Each year in January and February, Range Club attends the National Society for Range Management meeting. Every fall the club organizes a firewood fundraiser where members split wood logs down to manageable sizes and deliver them to people within the Laramie community. This fundraiser helps members attend the national meeting and gain more experience within the agricultural field and develop relationships with contacts.
Range Club also participates in various events around campus such as Student Resource Days and Discovery Days. In addition, an awards banquet is held for members near the end of each academic year.
Though Range Club is mainly centered around agriculture, there are no requirements to join and it is open to students of all majors, both undergraduate and graduate students. Baldwin said currently there about 15-20 active members, but 30-40 on the roster.
Baldwin said UW’s Range Club was actually a deciding factor in her choosing to attended UW for higher education, as she heard of the program and its strong range club when she was still in high school.
Since joining as a sophomore, Range Club has greatly effected her experience in college in a positive way. Although Baldwin said she did not join her freshman year because she felt intimated by the upperclassman, she stressed that joining was a greater experience than she could have imagined.
“This is how I met people on campus and got to have a good group of college friends that I’m really close with,” Baldwin said. “Even though it’s nothing really academic related or professional development related it is a really good way to get a personal experience out of college.”
Baldwin has been the president of UW’s Range Club since the beginning of the most recent academic year.
Range Club meets every two weeks at 7 p.m. in the College of Agriculture building in the Plant ID Lab located in room 2031.
On May 3, members will be hosting an ice cream social outside the College of Agricultural from 1-4 p.m.
Additional information and event updates can be found on the UW’s Range Club Facebook page or Collegiate Link website.
