[Bristol-Birds] BBC Student awarded prominent Dr. David Snyider Scholarship

Chris O'Bryan, a prominent teenage herpetologist and birder from the
 Bristol Bird Club, has been awarded the Dr. David Snyder Scholarship
by Austin Peay State University at Clarksville, TN for the 2008-2009
academic year.

The award was recently announced by Dr.Sarah Lundin-Schiller, Associate 
Professor of Biology, Chair, Biology Awards and Scholarships Committee.
The award has also been approved by the faculty of the department.

The scholarship is named in honor of 
Dr. Snyder, a faculty member from
1962 to 2004.  It goes to a student with
a demonstrated interest in field biology
and/or ecology.  The award is presented 
annually by the Biology Department.  The 
scholarship is valued at about $3,000.

His honor will be recognized at the Spring 
Student Awards Day Ceremony. In order 
to earn the scholarship,  Chris had to have
an ACT score of 26 and a GPA of 3.5 or 
higher to be considered.  Biology majors at
the sophomore level or higher were given 
priority, including graduate students.  The 
award can be renewable if he remains the 
top candidate.

O'Bryan is concluding his freshman year 
this week.  In April of last year, university 
          CHRIS O'BRYAN                officials presented him the Benjamin P. 
Stone 
         photo by Michele Sparks              Scholarship, a renewable award 
recognizing 
academic excellence for the study of biology. In addition, the Bristol Bird 
Club 
member who lives at Piney Flats, TN, has spent his last 12 months working 
under an appointed two-year undergraduate research assistantship 
which began in late May 2007.  Such assistantships are very rare for first 
semester freshmen.  The assistantship paid him for research he conducts with 
graduate students.  It is in addition to any scholarship funds.

His academic advisor is Dr. A. Floyd Scott, Director of the David H. Snyder 
Museum 
of Zoology which is housed in the spacious, new Sundquist Science Center. This 
is the major repository for amphibian and reptile specimens for the state.

Scott, along with William Redmond of the Tennessee Valley Authority, in 1996, 
published the widely-recognized Atlas of Amphibians in Tennessee.  Chris is part
of the team at The Center of Excellence for Field Biology.  He spent last 
summer's 
session and field research in West Tennessee where he researched the Alligator 
Snapping Turtle in the Ghost River tributary of the Wolf River about 30 miles 
east of 
Memphis along the Mississippi border.  He will return there this year.

He has spent several years volunteering as a researcher of the endangered Bog 
Turtles in the Southern Appalachians and in 2006 was employed during the summer
as a field researcher of the species hired by the Knoxville Zoo.

In 2004 he conducted a summer research study supervised by the East Tennessee 
State University Biology Department.  It was funded by ETSU under a Howard 
Hughes 
national grant.  He studied the Spiny Soft-shelled Turtle basking habitats.  
The study 
was featured on the Turner South National Cable TV program "Natural South."  
He presented his findings at the ETSU biology department.  He recently 
presented 
the results in a paper session at the Tennessee Herpetological Society annual 
meeting where he also moderated one of the morning paper sessions.

Over the Christmas holidays of Dec. 2005, he was invited by the Amazon 
herpetological staff of the U.S. National Museum to join the staff for a 
nine-day trip 
in the Amazon River of Peru.  Chris spent his Christmas on the Amazon River.  

Chis' dreams include eventually working towards a graduate degree and 
working in tropical herpetology.

During the school year he served as secretary to The Wildlife Society on campus
and has been elected to a second term for 2008-2009.  In addition, he is a 
member
of the society's five-member quiz bowl team which will compete at The Wildlife
Society's National Meeting in Miami in November of this year.  The team has been
working diligently during the school year to prepare for the event.

He recently had a paper accepted for publication in The Raven, journal of the
VSO:  Virginia's first winter nest record of Barn Owl (Tyto alba).  The authors 
are
Christopher J. O'Bryan,  J. Wallace Coffey and Andrew W. Jones.

His parents are Laura and Don O'Bryan, formerly of Shady Valley, TN and Boone, 
NC, who now make their home at Piney Flats, TN in Sullivan County.

Let's go birding . . . .

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN

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