CHAIR’S CORNER by Glen Landrus Chair
YOU HAVE DONE A LOT FOR WILD SHEEP, BUT THEY STILL NEED YOUR HELP
I
hope all of you are enjoying your summer, be it family vacations, preparations for upcoming hunts, or just some rest and relaxation at home, or all the above! As I sit here typing my first “Chair Letter” for the summer edition of Wild Sheep®, I want to begin with some thank you’s. First, thank you to our members, donors, exhibitors, staff, and volunteers that made the trek to the Sheep Show® in January. It was sure nice to re-connect with old friends as well as meet new ones. Sadly, the Omicron variant still disrupted attendance for some, so we hope to see you all in Reno in 2023. A huge thank you to our donors and members for their commitment to the Wild Sheep Foundation. The conservation world is a crowded space, and we know you have many options on where to spend your time and your money. On behalf of your board of directors, thank you for your continued support of our purpose and mission! Thank you to our outgoing chair, Dr. Peregrine Wolff. She led us through some of the most unpredictable and challenging times with a calm voice and steady hand on the gavel. From the time she was elected, the words “flatten the curve” no longer meant it was time for a new mountain rifle and “Corona” was no longer just a celebratory beer after a successful desert hunt. Despite the unprecedented challenges, Dr. Wolff led your foundation with great resolve and professionalism. Thank you! I want to thank Dr. Sam
14 WILD S HEEP® ~ SUMMER 2022
Cunningham and the Texas Bighorn Society as well as all the Chapter & Affiliate representatives that attended the summit in Texas in late May. It was a resounding success to see all of the great collaborative work being done in the name of wild sheep everywhere. It was great to see the connections between C&A leaders and the willingness to support each other’s’ projects. Wild sheep know no boundaries and neither do our Chapters and Affiliates. The final numbers are not in yet, but it looks like well over $40,000 will be raised for water projects in Texas as well as over $165,000 to support our friends in Nebraska with their aggressive plan to rescue their Rocky Mountain bighorn herd in the northwestern part of the state. The cliché that, “everything is bigger in Texas” applies to wild sheep conservation, too, as the synergy from the summit should lead to some great things for wild sheep. I am very excited, motivated, and humbled to serve as your chair of the board, so thank you to our board for the vote of confidence. We have a board of directors that is highly motivated, engaged, and committed to make sure our conservation and grant model is efficient, effective, and relevant to our mission. We are evaluating every aspect of our business model to make sure we are maximizing every dollar donated to ensure the future of wild sheep and your foundation. Finally, I’d like to share a few of the goals I have as chair for the
coming year: • Tell Our Story – The Wild Sheep Foundation is deeply involved with such a wide-range of projects and issues related to our purpose and mission. We must do a better job telling our story, telling our members and our donors what we do each and every day to promulgate our purpose and mission. We can’t do it without you, and we owe it to you to keep you informed on our progress. • Be Better – I challenged our board and our staff at our May meeting to simply “Be Better.” We need to communicate better, serve our membership better, serve our mission better, be better directors and to simply be better for wild sheep. Our Operational Excellence Committee is leading this process and I look forward to giving them the resources necessary to make it happen. • Conservation Funding Model – Work closely with the conservation committee, staff, and board to modify and improve our funding process to be more responsive and relevant. I closed out my first chair report in San Antonio in May and to the Chapter/Affiliate delegation with this challenge: Do Epic Sh!t! Our members deserve it, our exhibitors deserve it, our donors deserve it, and most importantly, our wild sheep deserve it. I’m looking forward to an epic year of conservation with the Wild Sheep Foundation! WS Yours in Conservation,
Glen A. Landrus
