The Southwestern Association of Naturalists
Minutes of the Business Meeting
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Friday, 10 April 1998
President Echelle called the meeting to order at 1300 MT. A quorum was present.
Approval of the minutes of the 1997 Business Meeting was moved and seconded.
The minutes were approved without correction.
President Echelle appointed Jeff Carpenter, Paul Shipman, Brian Arbogast,
William Lutterschmidt, Brock McMillan, and Karen Voltura to be tellers for
elections.
President Echelle and the tellers conducted the election of four new members of
the Board of Governors to replace members (Stanley Fox, Robert Dowler, Beth
Leuck, Brenda Clark) whose terms expire this year. No nominations by mail were
reported by the Secretary. President Echelle called for nominations from the
floor and 10 members were nominated and seconded. Gary Schnell moved that
nominations cease, Jerry Choate seconded and the motion carried. Ballots were
distributed, collected and were to be counted and the results announced at the
banquet Friday evening.
Treasurer Williamson reported on 1997 finances. A summary is
contained in the minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Governors and Officers.
Income totaled $50,273, expenses totaled $68,589, expenses exceeded income by
$18,316 and Williamson transferred $4,150 to the Trustees for investment. The
checkbook balance was $47,448 (31 December 1996) and $24,982 (31 December
1996). Williamson explained that the seemingly large difference between
expenses and income was due to a publication delay in 1996 and that the money
was held over from the 1996 budget to pay for delayed issues of the journal.
Further details are included in the Minutes of the Board of Governors and
Officers and in the Treasurer's written report.
The Treasurer then reported on 1997 memberships, which were 831 in various
categories of individuals and 375 institutions. By April 1997,individual
memberships had declined to 659. This decrease is consistent with patterns from
earlier years, and probably will be recouped by years' end. Next, Williamson
conducted the election of new members. She introduced a list of 47 regular, 37
student, 1 sustaining, 4 family (8 persons), and 6 gift prospective members.
There was a motion and second to approve the new members. The motion carried.
She then reported that from the data collected for the directory, 346 members
work primarily with mammals, 213 with birds, 244 with amphibians and reptiles,
175 with invertebrates, 183 with plants, and 157 with fishes. This total of
1,318 exceeds the membership total of 1251 because some individuals reported
more than one area of primary interest.
Williamson then reported on the 1999 balanced budget of $54,300 approved at the
Meeting of the Board of Governors and Officers on 9 April 1998. A summary is
contained in the minutes of that meeting.
Jerry Choate reported for the Board of Trustees that: (1) as of 31 December
1996 the endowment fund included mutual-fund shares valued at $158,230.63; (2)
as of 31 December 1999 the value of the fund had increased to $199,679.20 due
to a strong stock-market performance (market performance of +24.8%) and $2,150
in contributions. President Echelle called for questions and discussion of the
Trustee's report. There were none, and Echelle thanked Choate for the report
and for his and the other Trustee's work for the association.
Beth Leuck reported for the Budget Oversight Committee that the committee found
the fiscal affairs of the association to be in good order.
Managing Editor Edie Marsh-Matthews reported the same information to
the Business Meeting as was earlier provided to the BOG and reported in the
Minutes of the Board of Governors and Officers. The journal is back on
publication schedule, Karen McBee will now take over as Managing Editor, and
David Edds is now Associate Editor for Fishes.
Marsh-Matthews then thanked José Pedro do Amaral, a University of Oklahoma
graduate student, for his work on the WWW homepage, and thanked Troy Baird,
Bill Van Auken, Aurelio Ramirez-Bautista, Steve Cook, Caryn Vaughn, and Paula
Williamson for ad hoc or acting editorial services this year. She also thanked
Bruce DeMarais for serving as Associate Editor for Fishes (he is stepping
down), and Jenni Thommpson and Sylvia Montero for service in the editorial
office, and extended thanks to all continuing Associate Editors for their work.
William J. Matthews reported for the Honors Committee that:
- The Robert L. Packard Teaching Excellence Award for 1998 will go to Dr. Terry C. Maxwell of Angelo State University;
- The 1998 W. Frank Blair Eminent Naturalist Award will go to Robert Rush Miller of The University of Michigan;
- The 1998 Donald W. Tinkle Research Excellence Award will go to Salvador Contreras- Balderas of Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Leon;
- The awards will be presented at the 1999 banquet.
Caryn Vaughn gave the Conservation Committee Report. The
Conservation Award (reported
in the Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Governors and Officers) was
to be made at the banquet.
President Echelle reported for the Public Relations Committee that the
committee provided announcements of association awards to appropriate media,
and thanked committee members for their help.
Robert Dowler reported on the status of back issues. Storage of back issues is
expensive, but will be reduced to nothing in the future, because Angelo State
University will donate storage space. We need to liquidate additional sets,
which are available for $100, payable to the Treasurer; requests to Dowler.
Sets will be given to Mexican colleagues and institutions and Dowler asked for
volunteers to transport them to Monterey next year. Echelle thanked Dowler for
his report.
Program Chair Karen McBee reminded the meeting that the 1999 meeting will be
hosted by Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Leon in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, the
2000 meeting by the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas, and that no new
nominations or proposals for meeting sites have been received. She reported
that plans are proceeding for both meetings. She also introduced Ron Van Den
Bussche, the new committee chair.
Salvador Contreras-Balderas reported on plans for the 1999 meeting in
Monterrey. He issued assurances of an excellent meeting and encouraged
participation. The meeting will occur on 22 24 April following Easter weekend.
There was some discussion from members regarding travel to Mexico and
transportation.
Michael Bogan announced for the Local Committee that the paper by Brian S.
Arbogast and Joseph B. Slowinski ("Pleistocene Vicariance and the
Mitochondrial DNA Clock") originally scheduled for the Plenary Session and
a competitor for the Wilks Award, would instead be presented in the Community
Modeling and Bird Ecology session at 4:00 p.m.. The rearrangement was
necessitated by flight delays caused by weather. The paper remained eligible
for the Wilks competition.
The Local Committee also announced that the banquet was moved to the area where
the posters were viewed and that a shuttle schedule for transport to the
airport was posted at the registration desk. Joseph Manness asked for
nominations for free student memberships before the end of the meeting.
President Echelle reminded members to attend the banquet and social Friday
evening.
No new business was brought forward.
The following actions were taken at the 1998 Banquet on the evening of Friday
10 April 1998: President Echelle announced that Robert Dowler, Edie
Marsh-Matthews, Phillip Sudman and Christopher Taylor were elected to three
year terms as Governors.
The Robert L. Packard Award for Teaching Excellence was presented to Mark. S.
Hafner of Louisiana State University and the W. Frank Blair Eminent Naturalist
Award was presented to Harley P. Brown of The University of Oklahoma.
The Wilks Award for the Outstanding Student Paper was given to Karen Voltura of
The University of Oklahoma Department of Zoology for her report, "Parental
Investment in House Sparrows (Passer domesticus): An Experimental Manipulation
of Brood Sex Ratio." Voltura received a check for $250 from the Student
Awards Fund and a nearly complete set of back issues of The Southwestern
Naturalist.
Erin Walker of Texas Tech University received a $150 check from the Student
Awards fund and a nearly complete set of The Southwestern Naturalist for
winning the competition for the Outstanding Student Poster. The winning poster
was titled "Effect of Variable Winds on Dispersal of Wind Dispersed
Fruits: The Role of the Beak," and was co-authored by Mark A. McGinley.
A.T. Robinson, D.M. Kubly, R.W. Clarkson and E.D. Creef received the George M.
Sutton Conservation Award for their paper, "Factors Limiting the
Distributions of Native Fishes in the Little Colorado River, Grand Canyon,
Arizona" (The Southwestern Naturalist 41:378-387).
Jerry Choate read and the membership adopted the following resolution:
- Whereas the 45th Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Association of Naturalists has been co-hosted by the University of New Mexico and the U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and
- WHEREAS, the Botanical Society of America, Mid-continent Section joined with the Southwestern Association of Naturalists to make this the largest annual gathering of southwestern naturalists in memory, and
- WHEREAS the meeting was held in the Sheraton Old Town Hotel, and
- WHEREAS the first view of the Sheraton from I-40 for many of the married participants brought back memories of babies and diapers, and
- WHEREAS registrants were issued name tags that displayed the colorful natural history of the region and that cryptically concealed the registrants' names, and
- WHEREAS President Tony Echelle, who by his own admission had nevered chaired a meeting before, adeptly conducted the Board of Governors meeting following Robert Baker's Rules of Order, and
- WHEREAS the currency exchange in New Mexico caused no real problems for participants, but some of the meeting materials obviously were written by persons for whom English is a second language, and
- WHEREAS participants who read the official visitors' guide to Albuquerque provided in their hotel rooms learned that the original spelling of Albuquerque was "ALBURQUERQUE", which possibly explains the pronunciation that is still used by SWAN members from my native state of Oklahoma, and
- WHEREAS the Local Committee saw to it that visas and vehicle titles were not required for entry into New Mexico, and
- WHEREAS huevos rancheros, sopapillas, and margueritas satisfied the palate while trinkets from Old Town added to the credit balance of participants, and
- WHEREAS the lengthy program of scholarly scientific papers and posters required five simultaneous sessions that prompted participants to hone their skill at establishing priorities, and
- WHEREAS the Fire Marshall would have been shocked to see how many people can crowd into a meeting room, and
- WHEREAS the New Mexico Museum of Natural History proved that it is, in fact, possible to serve a good meal (judging from the size of it, it was roast mastodon) at a stand-up social event, and also enlightened participants with respect to Alaska, volcanos, spiders, the extinct ancestors of birds, and various other topics, and
- WHEREAS SWAN's first attempt at electronic registration for its annual meeting confirmed Mike Bogan's suspicion that computers really don't save time, and
- WHEREAS there is no truth whatsoever to the rumor that Terry Yates is trying to get both the UNM Department of Biology and the Southwestern Association of Naturalists listed on the New York Stock Exchange,
- BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the assembled members of the Southwestern Association of Naturalists extend their sincere "Gracias" to Co-chairpersons Michael Bogan of the U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, and Terry Yates of the University of New Mexico, and also the 43 other members of the Local Committee, for their time and toil in arranging and conducting what may have been the biggest and arguably was the best annual meeting of SWAN ever held.
Following a motion, second and approval for adjournment, the
Business Meeting adjourned at 1515 MDT.
Submitted by David L. McNeely, Secretary
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