by Caroline Cardile

WOWE was held at the South Padre Island Birding and Nature and Alligator Rescue Center from Tuesday, February 8 through Saturday, February 12. More than 1600 visitors, over 40 Texas Mater Naturalist (TMN) volunteers, and numerous members of Arroyo Colorado Audubon Society (ACAS), our TMN chapter, and other nature organizations helped make this years WOWE an outstanding event. Thank you to all our chapter members who volunteered their time!

There were some significant changes in WOWE for its 26^th year. For several years, the committee had hoped to expand the program to include field trips and this year we did. The trips were a big success. We also reduced the number of guest speakers and added a meal. In the past, there were several speakers per day in at least two rooms at a time. Each had 45 minutes to speak and 15 minutes to answer questions. Unfortunately, the speakers felt rushed to finish on time and yield the room to the next presenter. 

Since the Birding Center now has an alligator program, we were able to offer three alligator programs per day, in addition to three days with Jonathan Wood’s Raptor Project programs. These programs along with the 10 speakers we had a full day for participants. This improved the quality of the speaker program by allowing enough time for questions after each talk. 

The last three days of that week we offered the opportunity to buy a BBQ meal and eat it on the deck. On Saturday, we spent the last hour listening to an outstanding cello concert by Jenuine Cello aka Jen Mulhern in the main lobby. 

Each year, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, the originator of WOWE, presents an award to one person in our community who has made a significant contribution to nature in the Rio Grande Valley. This year the award was presented to Stephanie Bilodeau. She received her award after she gave her presentation about her studies at Boca Chica. Thank you, Stephanie, for your outstanding service to wildlife on Boca Chica and your outstanding presentation.