CSC alumna receives Early Career National Award

CHADRON – CSC alumna Andrea Westlake of Belle Fourche, South Dakota, received the Early Career National Award during the Society for Range Management’s (SRM) 77th Annual Meeting in Sparks, Nevada, in February. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is a key supporter of the annual SRM conference.
The NRCS award Westlake received honors employees who have shown outstanding service to NRCS and their customers. The award is intended to encourage and recognize early career (10 years or less) employees for outstanding performance in the grazing lands profession.
Westlake graduated from CSC in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science in Rangeland Management with Rangeland Livestock and Wildlife Management options.
According to Westlake, her education at CSC afforded her exposure to a wide variety of agricultural disciplines that she has utilized throughout her career.
“CSC provided me with a strong educational foundation that included not only the pursuit of knowledge, but also a vision for applying this expertise toward meaningful conservation efforts,” Westlake said. “My experiences at CSC have proven instrumental throughout my career, enabling me to approach conservation challenges with a well-rounded perspective.”
Westlake is an NRCS Rangeland Management Specialist with Belle Fourche Field Office in South Dakota, where she has worked for the past seven years. Previously, she worked as a Bureau of Land Management Range Technician and Cartologist.
According to Westlake, her position covers two counties with various land uses.
“I work with agriculture producers to adapt conservation plans to meet their goals and objectives for their operations,” Westlake said. “This is done by creating grazing systems on rangeland and cropland to improve forage production and soil health, as well as planning and implementing conservation practices and management, such as livestock watering systems, windbreaks, fences, cover crops, and native grass seedings.”
Westlake is also responsible for training new employees on implementing grazing plans with an emphasis on conducting rangeland inventories and rangeland health assessments.
In 2022, Westlake received the South Dakota NRCS Early Career Range Conservationist of the Year Award after being nominated by her colleagues. Her nomination was subsequently elevated to the national level, culminating in her receiving the 2023 National NRCS Early Career Range Conservationist of the Year Award.
According to NRCS Chief Terry Cosby, Westlake’s skills have been helpful when updating and completing projects and descriptions.
“Andrea’s technical skills have been extremely helpful with updating much-needed Rangeland Health Reference Sheets and completing ecological site descriptions,” Cosby said. “She is an active member of a local working group in the Black Hills charged with refining and improving complex ecological site descriptions.”
According to Westlake, one of her career-defining moments was spearheading a large-scale collaborative conservation project, an initiative that brought together the NRCS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Pheasants Forever, the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and Butte County Conservation District to implement sustainable practices on six ranches covering approximately 50,000 acres.
“Our efforts included the development of a shared livestock watering system, cross fencing, conversion of cropland to rangeland, stream crossings, windbreaks, and beaver dam analogs,” Westlake said. “Such projects highlight the power of strong partnership and innovation in advancing conservation goals.”
Although she had not originally planned to attend the SRM conference, Westlake is glad she was able to accept the award in person.
“Originally, I was not informed of winning the award. My boss called me a week before and asked if I would attend to assist with a ‘Women Making a Change in Range’ presentation. I turned it down because I didn’t think I would be able to get away on such short notice. At that time, they told me I had the opportunity to attend to accept this award. Obviously, this experience showed me the importance of adaptability and seizing opportunities for professional growth as it was an invaluable experience and marked a pivotal moment in my career,” she said.
Westlake found the SRM Conference enriching.
“The conference facilitated invaluable networking and provided a platform to engage with contemporary issues in rangeland conservation, marking a pivotal moment in my career. My attendance at the SRM meetings, including the state-level gatherings in South Dakota and the national conference, has been enriching,” Westlake said. “These forums are important for anyone committed to the field of rangeland management, offering diverse opportunities for learning, collaboration, and professional advancement.”
Looking ahead, Westlake aspires to serve as an Area Rangeland Management Specialist.
“This role promises broader impact by covering a larger geographical area than my current role and would include collaboration on more diverse rangeland projects,” Westlake said.
Newly discovered beetle species named for CSC professor
Chadron -- The unusual-looking insects first collected by Chadron State College Biology Professor Dr. Matthew Brust in sand dunes in south-central Wyoming have now been confirmed as a new species of scarab beetle and named after him.
Brust’s discovery of a new member of the bumblebee scarab beetle family, now known as Lichnanthe brusti, has also led to the classification of a beetle specimen collected in Nebraska more than 100 years ago as another new species.
An avid collector and naturalist, Brust first noticed the beetles on a trip to the Ferris Dunes, near Rawlins, Wyoming, in June 2022, while searching for tiger beetles. Surprised by the bee-like wing covers and flight patterns of the beetles he saw flying early in the day, Brust collected four specimens and later sent one to Dr. Matt Paulsen, a scarab beetle expert at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, who indicated the find might be a new species.
Brust’s subsequent visit to the same area one year later didn’t yield any more of the insects, but, acting on the knowledge that the beetle prefers sand dune habitat, he went early the next day to the nearby Seminoe Dunes and soon captured enough specimens for the complete description needed to assess their species classification.
In a paper published this month in the journal Insecta Mundi, Paulsen confirmed the approximately half-inch long insects as a new species of a scarab beetle family known previously to have only eight described members in America.
In the paper Paulsen also provides a detailed description of a single beetle specimen in the UNL collection found at a site on the Dismal River in Thomas County in 1889 by famed UNL professor Lawrence Bruner. From the precise analysis of that specimen, and comparison with the one found by Brust, Paulsen concluded it is also a separate species, which he named Licnanthe bruni.
“These two species … are immediately distinguishable from all existing species of the genus by their square mandibles,” Paulsen said.
An expert in identifying grasshoppers, Brust said his familiarity with a variety of insect families led to collection of the first beetle specimens.
“Having been around a lot, if its something I’ve never seen before, it might be something unusual,” he said.
The timing of his initial visit to the dunes was also significant, as the adult beetles only seem to emerge in the morning and die with a few days.
“You have got to be in the right place at the right time,” Brust said.
Brust said he started collecting insects when he was young and never outgrew the habit. His personal collection of tiger beetles numbers close to 1,000 specimens, and he estimates having identified more than 100,000 grasshoppers, primarily through work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Expertise in insect identification also led Brust to notice ground beetle specimens in the CSC collection, gathered by retired professor Randy Lawson in the 1980s, as an undescribed new species.
“Those specimens sat in the basement for 30 years before I noticed they were unique,” he said. “That’s the second species I’ve discovered.”
The new discoveries highlight the purpose of collecting and keeping specimens, according to Brust.
“You never know what might be important,” he said.
Brust is now excited to join Paulsen in a search for more of the species from Nebraska that is thus far is known from only one 134-year-old specimen. That beetle could be extinct, endangered, or possibly plentiful in the Sandhills, he said.
“I want to see if it’s still around. It’s like rediscovering an extinct critter.”
Brust thinks the naming of his beetle discovery is the first time a species has been named for a Chadron State faculty member.
“I was rather pleasantly surprised that this was something new to science,” he said of the serendipitous find. “To me this is just a thing I do. I go to places that nobody does, and I pay attention. I just want to contribute to my field. That’s what matters most.”
BHECN Panhandle sponsors Behavioral Health Careers Day
CHADRON – Chadron State College will host a Behavioral Health Careers Day Tuesday, April 9 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Student Center. Social Work Assistant Professor Rebecca Fernau said the event is open to high school students, community members, and CSC students interested in behavioral health careers in the fields of counseling, social work, or psychology.
There is no cost to attend and lunch is provided to all who register by Wednesday, April 3. In addition to providing participants with a firsthand glimpse into the world of behavioral health, faculty from the psychological sciences, social work, and counselor education programs will discuss pathways for students to enter behavioral health careers.
Associate Professor and co-director of Panhandle Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska (BHECN) Dr. Tara Wilson said the event will provide a series of activities related to overall behavioral health, including a poverty simulation from 10 a.m. to noon, and an auditory hallucination simulation and wellness presentation from 1 to 2 p.m.
During the interactive poverty simulation, participants will assume identities of family members facing poverty. Tables with volunteer staff representing community resources and services will be available. The debriefing portion of the experience will involve participants discussing what they learned. Participants will be invited to share what they learned from the experience with family, friends, and contacts in the community.
Fernau said the poverty simulation will provide participants with insight and understanding into what it is like for individuals to navigate living paycheck to paycheck.
“The scenarios are realistic. These are things that families must deal with, particularly families living in the rural environment. This simulation sheds light on real challenges and helps correct some misconceptions,” Fernau said.
Wilson said the auditory hallucinations simulation will provide participants with the opportunity to complete a series of activities while hearing auditory voices. The experience is designed to increase empathy and understanding of those who experience auditory hallucinations. Most often hallucinations, auditory or otherwise, are associated with the diagnosis of schizophrenia, Wilson said.
Dr. Britt Helmbrecht, Associate Professor of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, and Campus Wellness Officer, will conclude the day with a presentation about how students can take care of their mental health as well as the career field of behavioral health.
“I'll stress the importance of self-care for success as a student and how those lessons will translate into their professional career,” Helmbrecht said.