Kim Sash (GTC Senior Co-Chair)

Dear members,

It was wonderful meeting so many of you in St. Petersburg at the 46th annual meeting, we had about 155 people in attendance. Thank you for coming and also for filling out the meeting review, we read all your comments and always strive to improve the meeting where we can. I want to thank our keynote speaker, Peter Meylan, and guest speaker Ed Larue, as well as all of our speaker and poster presenters. I especially want to thank all of the students that attended and presented, you’re the future and we were really happy to host you all as well.

I want to also give a big thanks to Eric Sievers and his team for putting on a great meeting (and giving me a basket of dead batteries). Eric will now hold the position of Outgoing Co-Chair as we bring in our new Junior Co-Chair, Jeff Baker from Alabama Power Co.  

We are really excited to host you all this year at Tall Timbers in Tallahassee, Fl. Keep a lookout for announcements for the 47th annual meeting.

Quickly approaching is Gopher Tortoise Day on April 10th. If you’re interested in hosting a Gopher Tortoise Day event, grant applications are due on March 15th. This is a fun way to educate others on the value of gopher tortoises.

On behalf of our board that works tirelessly to run this volunteer organization, we hope 2025 is off to a good start for you all. Thank you all for your continued support of the Gopher Tortoise Council and I want to challenge each of you to encourage at least one person in 2025 to become a GTC member. 

Wishing you only occupied burrows,

Kim Sash

Senior Co-chair