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BYU Tops SRM International Meeting

BYU PWS students placed among top performers at the Society for Range Management's International Annual Meeting held in early 2023. The team as a whole placed first in the URME test, competing against 22 other schools.

Students from BYU’s Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences won multiple awards at the Society for Range Management’s (SRM) 2023 International Annual Meeting held in Boise, Idaho. After competing against 22 international schools, BYU placed first in the Undergraduate Range Management Exam (URME) and received the SRM Collegiate Trail Boss Award, the highest award presented to student teams. BYU is the first team to win the award in back-to-back meetings.

A group of 18 people with a mix of men and women stand in casual clothes, smiling in front of a mural that says "We are Rangelands. Leaders. Stewards. Producers. Educators." The woman kneeling in the front of the group holds a wooden plaque with small black rectangles all over it.
Photo by April Hulet

“The SRM meetings in Boise were a huge success—the students represented BYU remarkably well,” says plant and wildlife sciences professor April Hulet. Hulet, along with professors Matt Madsen, Loreen Allphin, and Steve Petersen, helped train the students who participated in the competition.

BYU excelled not only as a team, but also as individuals. For the URME, BYU’s Curtis Drake (PWS ’23) won first place, Ethan Ostraff (PWS ’23) won second place, and Eliza Cash (PWS ’23) won third place. The combined URME and plant identification test scores won Ostraff third place and Cash fourth place.

The international competition succeeds BYU's first place win in the URME and plant ID tests taken with other Utah universities in late 2022.

“The PWS students worked very hard to achieve these results. They put in endless hours to learn the materials, and we couldn’t have asked for a better group to represent BYU at this international competition. Myself, and the other coaches, were delighted with their success,” Hulet says.