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 .