The Turners: a rare specimen of Aggie generosity
Ranching couple’s gift finds natural home at Texas A&M biodiversity collection
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At the end of most days, Judy ’78 and Tim ’74 ’77 Turner sit beneath the shade tree overlooking their ranch near San Angelo and watch the birds and nature spring to life.
It’s a simple ritual born from a lifelong love for nature and commitment to land stewardship, wildlife and conservation. That same appreciation eventually led the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences former students to an unexpected place.
The Turner’s found the Biodiveristy Research and Teaching Collections, BRTC, in the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, where they found a mission reflecting the values they have spent a lifetime living.
That kinship is what turned a lifetime of land stewardship into a gift supporting the research and teaching collections, its impact on global research and the next generation of Aggie scientists.
“Judy and I want to make a positive impact where and when we can,” Tim said. “We all move through life and encounter people and causes that we’re drawn to or inspired by. It’s in our nature to take care of people and to support causes that carry that nature forward into the world.”
A living collection, a living investment
The Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections were established in 1936 to give students something textbooks could not: real specimens to study firsthand. Nearly a century later, they hold more than 2.3 million vertebrate specimens, including mammals, reptiles and birds, making them one of the largest university-based natural history collections in the country.
“The specimens they have here are the highest form of upcycling. The Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections are an amazing, inspiring part of the university. What they do here ripples through research and teaching and the students who are tomorrow’s experts and academics.”
Judy Turner ’78
The specimens document the wildlife of Texas, the U.S., and Central and South America, along with holdings from around the world. Each specimen comes with field notes and collector catalogs attached, turning a drawer of birds or fish into a data set researchers can look back to for decades. This data has informed countless studies in vertebrate biology, wildlife and fisheries conservation, and even forensic biology.
For students, the Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections double as a working classroom. Five vertebrate courses, covering biodiversity and vertebrate biology, ornithology, mammalogy, herpetology and ichthyology, hold their labs on site, where students handle real specimens instead of photographs or models.
Students can also intern directly with the Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections to earn course credit while learning specimen preparation and collection management alongside curators.
“The specimens they have here are the highest form of upcycling,” Judy said. “The Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections are an amazing, inspiring part of the university. What they do here ripples through research and teaching and the students who are tomorrow’s experts and academics.”
The ripple effect
That ripple effect from the Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections informing decades of research and generations of students is exactly what drew the Turners in.
Judy and Tim feel a connection to Texas A&M that goes back decades, one they describe as inspiration to invest where a gift can grow into something larger. They call it the “seed money” effect: an early gift draws in additional support and expands what a program can do. To the Turners, that makes a gift to the university an investment, not a one-time donation.
Did you know?
The Collection of Birds includes more than 35,000 birds spanning 1,951 species from 59 countries. Specimens also include nearly 1,500 skeletons, 400 egg sets and 6000 wings.
That thinking is what brought them to the Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections in the first place. During a tour of the facility, they connected with Gary Voelker, Ph.D., professor and curator of the Collection of Birds, who walked them through specimens spanning decades of research. It didn’t take long for the Turners to see where their support could make a difference.
The Turners provided funding for Voelker to apply to the bird collection through the Ornithological Research Fund. The gift has helped fund bird specimen collection trips afield and preparation of specimens. It has also covered travel expenses for students to attend a conference and allowed students to work on Voelker’s research projects. Voelker said, more importantly, students learn curation techniques that help prepare them to become the next generation of conservation scientists.
“We continue to be amazed by the collections, and what it represents as a teaching tool and in the field as a global research resource and to scientists’ long-term study of animals,” Tim said. “For us, it was simple – we saw a need and thought we could help fill it.”
Preserved for what comes next
Much of what the Turners have learned at the Biodiversity and Research Teaching Collections has come from visits and the specimens preserved years, sometimes decades ago. Their latest stop there provided a new, more personal perspective.
They had returned for a photoshoot for this story and found themselves face-to-face with two people their giving had already reached.
The Turners met two students whose recent trip to a national conference was paid for by the couple’s gift. At the conference, the students made their first professional poster presentations and connected with researchers in the field.
Voelker said that kind of experience among experts and peers is invaluable for student development and networking within the ecology and conservation fields.
“We’re thankful to be in a position to support things we believe are going to make a difference for students and the future of Texas A&M,” Tim said. “That’s what being an Aggie is about. You see a need, you step up and you trust that others will do the same.”
Support science that lasts
For nearly a century, the Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections have supported research, teaching and conservation. Your support helps ensure that impact continues for generations.
