The Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory (RMBO) is seeking nominations for the 2011 Richard G. Levad Award. The award honors the memory of Rich, who made outstanding contributions to Colorado ornithology throughout his career as a teacher and as a staff member of the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory. Rich passed away in February of 2008.
The award recognizes persons who, like Rich in his incredibly productive lifetime, have provided distinguished service to the ornithological community, made scholarly contributions to the field of ornithology and/or have enthused others about conserving birds and their habitats through sharing their personal knowledge and experience. Award nomination forms can be found at <http://www.rmbo.org/> http://rmbo.org/files/LevadAwardForm.doc or write to me to request the form. The deadline for submission of all nominations is July 15, 2011. The award will be presented at the RMBO annual membership picnic in Brighton, CO on August 27 (learn more about our annual picnic at: http://www.rmbo.org/dataentry/postingArticle/dataBox/rmbo_newsletter_2011_04.pdf ). Nominations can be made by anyone and should highlight a nominee’s contributions to ornithology, conservation, and/or their success in sharing their knowledge of birds with others. Rich Levad taught English for more than 30 years at Central High School in Grand Junction and started working for RMBO after he retired from that position. He was a key player in starting RMBO’s Monitoring Colorado’s Birds program, which helped identify new breeding sites for such species as the Black Swift and Purple Martin, and he started Project Colony Watch, a volunteer-driven effort to gather data on 15 of Colorado’s colonial waterbird species. His book on the Black Swift, The Coolest Bird, has been published by the American Birding Association and is available on their website (http://www.aba.org/thecoolestbird.pdf). Rich was the first recipient of the award in his name, in 2006, after he had been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Here are other recipients: 2007 – Nelda Gamble (Former RMBO staff member) 2008 – Kim Potter (U.S. Forest Service biologist) 2009 – Mike Carter (Founder of the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory) 2010 – Hugh Kingery (First Colorado Breeding Bird Atlas book editor & author on Colorado Birding book) Thank you, Jason Beason Special Monitoring Projects Coordinator Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.