Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Jared Henson: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm Dr. Jared Henson, and I'll be your host today. We got a great episode, a cool topic on a really unique education opportunity for young people out there that are interested in conservation or waterfowl science. And to do that, I have two great guests with me today. I have Jennifer Cross, who's an education biologist for Ducks Unlimited out of the Great Plains office in North Dakota. Jennifer, welcome to the podcast.

Jennifer Cross: Hey, thanks. It's great to be here.

Jared Henson: And we also have Elizabeth Polarski, who's a program manager from the Texas Brigades. Elizabeth, thanks for being on the podcast.

Elizabeth Polarski: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Jared Henson: And so as customary on the podcast, we want to learn a little bit more about our guests. So Jennifer, if you don't mind telling us a little about your role at DU and kind of how long you've been with DU, what brought you to DU?

Jennifer Cross: Oh, well, I think it's the mission that brought me to DU. But yeah, I've been working for Ducks Unlimited for about 19 years now. I just had an anniversary. And I kind of came to DU right out of grad school from my master's. I got a master's in waterfowl ecology, and I came in as a communications person. So I was writing about wetlands and Ducks Unlimited projects and why we do what we do. And then I kind of just started doing outreach because people would call the office and say, hey, can somebody come and talk about ducks and wetlands? You know, they call the professionals at Ducks Unlimited. And that was me. So, um, I've just, I've kind of turned this into a part of my career with Ducks Unlimited and we're building lots of different outreach stuff in this Texas, uh, or this North Dakota Waterfowl Brigade camp is going to be amazing.

Jared Henson: Awesome. And Elizabeth, can, can you jump off that and tell us a little bit about what you do at Texas Brigades and then we'll jump into a little bit, just a background maybe on what the Texas Brigades actually are.

Elizabeth Polarski: Yes, absolutely. So Texas Brigades, For background information, it is a volunteer-based organization. So I am one of three full-time staff that we have. We work with over 400 volunteers, which I think is important to know in terms of what I do. A big portion of my job is working with volunteers, all of the volunteers that help put our camps on. So I work with all 10 of our camp committees. We have nine camps in Texas and then the one in North Dakota. That is my primary responsibility, working day to day with those volunteers to make camp happen. But I am actually a product of the organization. So I started going to camps when I was 13. My older brother went through. I wanted to be just like him. So I went through the camps as well from the time I was 13 to 17. Worked as summer staff during my high school and college career. Volunteered while I was in college. I did my bachelor's degree in wildlife sustainability and ecosystem sciences from a small school in Texas. So I was born and raised in Texas. I am actually, as of two months ago, a resident of North Dakota. So that's a big change. But yes, I work with all of our volunteers. I work with all the kids. It's a very rewarding job. So I do love it.

Jared Henson: That's awesome. And yeah, I can only imagine the temperature shock that you're going through right now from Texas to North Dakota.

Elizabeth Polarski: It was definitely the worst time that I possibly could have moved to North Dakota.

Jennifer Cross: Yeah, we just had that big cold front move through. And yeah, it was pretty challenging for someone, I think, that's used to Texas weather.

Jared Henson: Oh, well, Texas just got a bunch of snow too.

Elizabeth Polarski: I'm sure you're doing great, Elizabeth. I know. Yeah, Texas just got a bunch of snow too, so making it work.

Jared Henson: Well, good. Well, so I'm really excited about this. I think that that's one of the biggest things we have to do as conservation professionals is to inspire the next generation, right? To show them and teach them to care about things that are not what we would consider, you know, everyday progress that they see. going on and to appreciate natural things. And it seems to me like that's kind of the core mission of Texas Brigades and those things that are out there. So can you give us a little background on Texas Brigades itself? Like what is the organization? What's its mission?

Elizabeth Polarski: Yeah, so Texas Brigades is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We started back in 1993 as a single camp. Dr. Dale Rawlins, big quail guy in Texas, he started the very first bobwhite brigade while he was working for AgriLife Extension. And from there, bobwhite brigade has expanded across the state. We now have two bobwhite brigades, two buckskin brigades, two ranch brigades, a waterfowl, a bass, a coastal and now the North Dakota Waterfowl Brigade. So it has grown in terms of the number of camps, 32 I think is, if I'm doing my math quickly on the spot, I think 32, 33 years worth of camps and volunteers, kids impacted, all that kind of stuff. Outside of our camps program, we do other sorts of educational outreaches as well. So we have our experiences program, which are single-day events for those younger kids, typically targeted at like 9 to 17, single-day events about all different types of topics, but really just to get them hooked on the brigade's model and hopefully encourage them to come back to our camps program when they're of age. So, our camps program is for 13 to 17. All of the camps are five days in length. And so, they happen all across the state in North Dakota, June and July. And I always tell parents that at a minimum, or at its core, Texas Brigades summer camps are leadership camps. So, it's not just teaching these kids about ecology and habitat management and how to work cows, how to put telemetry collars on quail, how to identify ducks. It's how can you get up and eloquently speak about a topic that you are passionate in, you're interested in, how can you build your leadership skills, push yourself, and to put yourself in the position of being able to be a conservation leader. So that is our vision, is conservation leaders in every community. The five-day camps challenge the kids. They're very intense. They're up at sunrise marching and calling cadences and in and out of the classroom, in the field, doing some pretty cool hands-on activities that a lot of professionals sometimes can't even do. So they're learning about prescribed fire. I don't know. Anything you can imagine. Yeah, anything you can imagine these kids are learning about at camp. And it's all with the goal to set them up to be leaders in their community.

Jared Henson: So Elizabeth, I think one of the really cool things that you just mentioned was this peer leadership idea and the fact that Texas Brigades kind of has this model system with role models, mentors, things like that. And you yourself are one of these peer leaders within the program. And we're lucky enough to have Chase who just joined us, Chase Schmidt. He's a Uh, going to be a assistant leader for the waterfowl brigade this year. Uh, he just joined us, uh, had to step out of class to jump in. So Chase, welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. Yeah. Thanks guys for having me. So glad you're here. Can you tell us a little bit about your, your background now with Texas brigades, what you've done there and then kind of what you're doing now and where you're going with, with the program and how you're, you're stepping in as this assistant leader.

Chase Schmidt: Yeah, so I started off going to the Waterfowl Brigade. And I mean, they start you off as a cadet, so you just start off. It's like you go through the college course yourself. It's just full-blown knowledge. I mean, it's a week's worth of everything you could ever want to know on ducks. And I thought that was just great. And then afterwards, you can apply to be a camp assistant, right? So you become a camp assistant, you create this thing called a BOA. And the BOA is basically this book of all your achievements and volunteer hours that you get in conservation. And so it almost promotes us, promotes the people after the camp to apply their skills and put in that stewardship that they've been learning at this camp. And so I did a variety of factors from speaking at large gatherings of other wildlife enthusiasts to just making wood duck houses and That was also like one great part I found about the program.

Jared Henson: And then I think one of the cool things that you just mentioned is that this program is not only is it giving you that background information about waterfowl, waterfowl ecology and the habitat and conservation, but it's also promoting that, as Elizabeth mentioned, the leadership aspect. And I can tell you this as being someone who came from the academic world and who's Uh, looking at a lot of resumes and, and circumvented CVS, things like that, that the thing that college kids and high school kids struggle with is experience. And so having that list that you, that short list that you just already mentioned. uh, really steps up your experience, uh, as far as what you're putting out there. So that's a fantastic thing that this program is, is pulling together. And as we keep talking about it, we've teased this a whole bunch, but we're really talking about the North Dakota waterfowl camp aspect of this brigade. And I think before we get much more on what Chase is going to be contributing to that there. I think I want to bring Jennifer back over here and get her to give us this quick spill on how they've got the Waterfowl Brigade, right? And you mentioned that kind of, but why North Dakota Waterfowl Brigade and what that is.

Jennifer Cross: Well, I guess I can start where we all started. I was approached by Texas Brigades. They have a waterfowl camp down in Texas on the wintering grounds. And as any organization does, they expand and they wanted to do a camp on the breeding grounds. up here in North Dakota, Prairie Pothole region. Hoot, hoot. And so, yeah, I got involved and started learning about the brigades and kind of talking to Elizabeth and the brigade's executive director. I went down to Texas to a camp and kind of learned how the Waterfowl camp is managed there. And then we decided, well, we're going to do this up here. So we're going to use Texas Brigade's model and we're going to partner with them and form a North Dakota Waterfowl Brigade planning committee. And yeah, it's amazing. We've been working on all kinds of things and we can really focus on nesting up here while the Texas people focus on the wintering habitat stuff. So we're going down the flyway, up the flyway.

Jared Henson: Yeah, and it's very different, right? The ecology is very different. And we know if you want to impact waterfowl populations, that that's the area to focus on is in the prairie areas and the breeding grounds. So I think that's a really important next step for educating those professionals. Can you tell us a little bit about the camp itself? What's it look like? What are the experiences that these kids are going to get?

Jennifer Cross: Okay. Well, so it's going to be in Washburn, North Dakota, at this camp facility. So what's going to happen is the kids are going to get up in the morning and do marching. And then we've got classroom sessions that involve waterfowl ecology, waterfowl biology, habitat management, and then we've got field stuff. going out and actually touching wetland insects and seining for wetland insects. And then we've got a researcher coming in from North Dakota State University and she does nest searching with drones and we're going to have the kids look at the drones. And then we've also got some opportunities for them to get their hands on some real duck data. um, and migration data and to kind of see and follow like where ducks have been and kind of see their patterns so they can discern, well, maybe they built a nest here. They were like in this spot for three or four days kind of thing. So, um, yeah, shooting experience. And then of course, all of this stuff that goes along with a camp, you know, like making friends and doing cheesy camp stuff, like. sink the cadences and we're going to have fireside chats with marshmallows and s'mores afterwards. Lots of opportunities for the kids to get mentorship. We have professionals from the USDA, the NRCS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, like I mentioned, North Dakota State University and extension agents. We have all these professionals coming in and giving presentations to these young people and so that's just another and like usually they're gonna probably hang around so the kids will have time to ask them questions outside of that and just kind of like build that those connections too which can help them with future stuff.

Jared Henson: Chase so you're gonna be in an assistant yeah what are you gonna be doing so what what's that look like for you at the camp what is your role gonna be?

Chase Schmidt: Um, so I think I'm going to be like a mama duck, basically just kind of leading people around and, uh, really helping out with just getting the group, like they have these flocks. And so you want to get the group where they need to go and just overall helping the kids get the best experience out of the camp.

Jared Henson: That's awesome. So yeah, I hope you get some good kids to imprint well, and you don't have any stragglers.

Jennifer Cross: Yeah, Chase and Chase kind of is going to serve as like a mentor for his other kids. He's already been through the camp experience so he can help, you know, reassure the other young people in his group about what's coming up and that they can really do it.

Jared Henson: Well, that sounds like a great time. And Elizabeth, you, you yourself said you were a camp leader, I believe as well. So, um, and is that the same kind of experience you talked about at the other camps where you're, you're helping just facilitate, organize, and also be someone who's probably a little more relatable to the young kids, right? You don't have someone who's 40 trying to talk to a bunch of high school kids. Cause as much as I try, it's harder to relate.

Elizabeth Polarski: No, it it's, it's exactly the same. So all nine of our camps in Texas. they function the same model-wise, structure-wise, just the same as this North Dakota waterfowl brigade one does. So, it's the same model as what we've seen working for 32 plus years. We typically have roughly 24 to 30 kids at each camp, and as Chase had alluded to, those 24 to 30 kids are broken down into different groups. So, At Ranch Brigade, they're called herds. At Bob White Brigade, they're called coveys, schools. Waterfowl Brigade, they're called flocks. So depending on how many kids you have, you have four to five flocks. And those cadets make up the flock in addition to the assistant leader, like what Chase is. Someone who has been to camp, experienced it, kind of knows the ropes, knows what to expect, as well as an adult leader. So you mentioned that you wish there was something like this for you. In fact, you can come to camp if you want. So, every flock has an adult leader associated with it. It does not have to be somebody that is in the waterfowl or natural resources realm. In fact, we kind of prefer if you don't have a ton of knowledge on it because that adult leader's responsibility is to mentor the kids, be a cheerleader, make sure they get from point A to point B. But yes, I have been an assistant leader at multiple camps, I've been cadets at multiple camps, so I have had the luxury of seeing it from all angles and it doesn't matter in which way you get involved in a brigade camp, it's impactful whether you're a 13-year-old or 55-year-old adult leader. It's a wonderful experience to be a part of.

Jared Henson: One of the other things that I want to bring up, you keep bringing up the term experience, like this is a great experience for people and Chase coming out of a camp recently, I'd love to hear what Chase's like, the experiences that he remembers and the things that he really enjoyed about being at camp and being one of the cadets.

Chase Schmidt: Oh yeah, so there's quite a bit actually. One of my favorite parts was that we got to go outside and they had all these fun activities. They'd have these stations, I'd call them, and you'd go around and you'd just look at every station. They'd tell you different info at each one. One time they had a rocket net set up and so I thought that was just one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. And they just went through everything from hunt, just hunting strategies, to duck anatomy, to Um, like even decoy setups, I guess, but.

Jared Henson: That's awesome. Yeah. Rocket nets are always very entertaining and they are exactly for those who don't know out there, our listeners out there who aren't, aren't really aware of what a rocket net is. It is exactly what it sounds like. It is a 30 foot by 60 foot net propelled by rockets, uh, detonated. It's, and it's a very useful capture technique for waterfowl. If you're trying to do big numbers of banding or assessment, uh, you can get a lot of birds at once. Actually, I got my RocketNet training in North Dakota. I got to go up to Jay Clark and band with them for 10 days when they were doing their big banding operation at the end of breeding season, just post wing molt. We banded like 3,000 ducks in 10 days.

Jennifer Cross: Oh my gosh, that's amazing. That sounds like such a fun time.

Jared Henson: It was a great time. I was finishing up a little bit of my dissertation work up there doing that. And it was just as exciting for me to see the rocket nets as it was for you too, Chase, I promise. It's always a really fun thing to see and catch on with. But what's really cool is once you get that experience, you see, oh, you're capturing a duck, you know, then you get to also see what kind of data can you get off a duck. And I know y'all mentioned that there were some things so what are the other like chase mentioned stations. So you've got some stuff on hunting you've got some stuff on the waterfowl ecology is there anything specifics I think Jennifer you mentioned some of the. the invertebrate ecology, right?

Jennifer Cross: Because that's the base of the food web for a lot of waterfowl. Yeah, so we want to get dirty, right? I think in the wildlife conservation profession, dirt's part of it. Yeah, so getting into the wetland and sampling some invertebrates. We've also got a landowner set up who we're going to visit. So we're going to go to this person's property and he's going to let us know what conservation practices he's got going on on his property. And we'll do probably a lot of grass and plant identification there and kind of helping kids learn what plants are good for prairies and supporting duck nesting. There's a lot of crossover in this camp, or I guess a lot of links made to hunting and conservation. I mean, I think as people who use the resources and a lot of Ducks Unlimited members know, we are the ones that contribute to conservation by our licensed sales and the duck stamps that we buy. you know, all this goes into that conservation stuff. So it's important to make that tie, I think, to hunting as well because it's not separate.

Jared Henson: Hunters are excellent conservationists, they put their money where their mouth is, and they genuinely care about a resource, and so that's a really important thing to portray to young people who don't see that on a daily basis. I think that was one of the, on a former call, I think, Jennifer, you mentioned that y'all do an actual full lesson on duck stamps, is that right?

Jennifer Cross: Yeah, yeah. Oh, so, okay, that's another session that we have coming up. So there is kind of like an artistic component usually wrapped into the brigade camps. When I went down to Texas, we painted decoys, but for our camp in North Dakota, we have some junior duck stamp. The junior duck stamp coordinator here in the state is going to come over with one of her, one of the former winners of the duck stamp in North Dakota, and they're going to kind of teach us how to do duck stamps, teach us how to paint ducks, and how to submit an entry for the duck stamp competition.

Jared Henson: Well, that's fun. I mean, that's a really cool aside as well, right? And in the conservation world, I do want people to be aware, you don't have to be a biologist to be a very effective and contributing member in a conservation organization or conservation field. It takes all kinds of different people from program managers, conservation managers, project managers, biologists, podcast producers like we got one over here you know yeah there's a lot of non-science jobs as well but understanding the basics of the science is really important as well as how the money flows right what funds conservation those are really important things to get across and i'm really glad that y'all are emphasizing those those lessons

Elizabeth Polarski: Yeah, I was gonna add, I think that's a very, I'm glad you brought that up, because that is a very important thing to note that brigade camps, I would say 95% of the people that come to brigade camps as a kids have a previous involvement with hunting, fishing, being outdoors, but at a minimum, everyone has some sort of interest in being outside. And like you said, being a biologist, being a rancher, it is not a prerequisite to want to come to a brigade camp. It's just having that passion and interest of being outside. And our whole goal is to either deepen or establish that passion for the outdoors in these kids. So my very, very best friend that I met at my first Bob White Brigade when I was 13, we have been best friends since. She's an audiologist now, and she spent a good chunk of her high school and college career involved with brigades. At the end of the day, it's equipping these kids to be advocates for conservation, whether they are in the conservation space or not. It's fun to get outside, it's fun to put your hands on ducks, put your hands on macroinvertebrates, all that kind of fun stuff, but there's also journaling and photography and photography and painting and all that other stuff that goes into it, public speaking skills, that's not just the hands-on stuff as well. So I think that that's important to know as well that you don't have to want to be a biologist to come to camp. You just have to have a passion for the outdoors.

Jared Henson: Yeah, I'd like to ask Chase, was there anything surprising that you did at the camp that you thought was a little different for a conservation camp but was also pretty neat?

Chase Schmidt: Elizabeth mentioned the journaling was something I did not expect at first. We see throughout history, conservationists have journaled Lewis and Clark, but it was definitely something I never really thought would be mentioned or really practiced at this camp. I thought it was kind of really actually neat just sitting outside. observing the world around you.

Jared Henson: Yeah, it makes you do that right too, and actually makes you jot down your thoughts, which is just fantastic. And, you know, if you read some really famous wildlife literature, you know, something from like Aldo Leopold or something like that, then you pretty much get some journal entries, right? In those essays, he's kind of reliving and rewriting some of those daily things he sees. And so just being able to take note of those little things that you notice when you're sitting outside, I think that's really important. I think that's a really cool aspect of the camp. So that's really neat. The art side, journaling. What else would y'all like to put out to the listeners, the audience out there to show people a little bit more about the camp?

Elizabeth Polarski: I'd like to add that, well, this is a sell for the parents. I recruit much differently for parents versus the kids. But when I'm talking to the parents, getting involved with a brigade camp, you will see changes in your kid. It sounds so cheesy to say, but it is truly a life-changing experience for the kids to go through it and experience those five days alongside their peers, their mentors, future advisors. I know it changed the trajectory of my education when I went through, but it is a life-changing experience from an organization standpoint. on an annual basis, we award more than $50,000 in college scholarships, which Chase is one of our recent recipients of a college scholarship. So that is for any higher level institution. It does not have to be a four-year university. but to get involved with brigade camps and to stay involved, if it's something that your kid is interested in or not interested in, you can still send them to camp. And it's a wonderful experience for them, not only from an education standpoint, but personal development, leadership, team building, all the things that we've talked about, but from an educational standpoint, future career down the road. And so I think that that's an important thing to at least mention is that we're here to help invest in these kids from a younger age to see them through whether they want to pursue a career in the conservation space or not. Those college scholarships are a big selling point for a lot of parents. And then the camp tuition itself, tuition to attend camp is $500. It covers the meals, lodging, supplies for those five days at camp. But there are plenty of tuition assistance sponsorships available. So we have a lot of great local donors, organization-wide donors that want to help kids get to camp. So always encourage people to not let that $500 tuition be a barrier. We will help get your kid to camp one way or the other.

Jared Henson: That's awesome. And the camp for this year is scheduled for, it looks like, July 8th through 12th?

Elizabeth Polarski: Yes, sir.

Jennifer Cross: July 8th through 12th. And our application deadline is March 15th.

Jared Henson: March 15th.

Jennifer Cross: Yeah. And we, and like, I mean, Elizabeth was saying when, like the way the flocks are structured, we have room for adult volunteers, too. So we want to encourage young people, 13 to 17, to apply and adults, too. who are interested in being adult leaders and helping to mentor some pretty outstanding kids.

Jared Henson: And these camps are open to people from all over the U.S., right?

Elizabeth Polarski: Yes. Is that kind of the… Absolutely. So from a Texas camp perspective, we always have kids come from out of state, Oklahoma, Louisiana, those immediately surrounding states. But with North Dakota Waterfowl Brigade, this is the first year of it happening. So this is our very first out-of-state camp. This is the first time we'll be having North Dakota Waterfowl Brigade. So it would be cool to be a part of the 1st Battalion. But no, it is absolutely open to anyone outside of North Dakota. pinpointing and putting a lot of emphasis on that Great Plains region. So we would love to see kids from outside of Montana, or outside of North Dakota, from that Montana, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, anywhere in the United States, we would love to have you.

Jared Henson: Chase, what's your, if you could say something to those people listening, if you're trying to convince them to attend camp or pique their interest about it, what would you tell them?

Chase Schmidt: Well, I would say this was truly a life-changing experience. It was something that helped me decide a career, look into a career path in wildlife biology, and it was just a great experience. It's something I would recommend to everyone in the world, despite who they think or what they want to be, because it's like you guys are saying, it's for it's truly for anyone who's interested in the outdoors and I think that should be something like we should all value in our society so.

Jared Henson: That's awesome. I mean and that's you know coming from someone who's just just attended and been at that and you know have them tell that with that kind of conviction that's that's compelling. I do want to throw it over to Jennifer again and so Jennifer is kind of I believe president of the planning committee and so her and some of her colleagues in the Great Plains office in North Dakota are helping to pull the camp together and some of these trainings and resources. And I'd like for her to give a shout out to kind of all the people involved and things like that.

Jennifer Cross: Yeah. So we've got one of our researchers, Katrina Terry, at the Great Plains office. She's going to come out and help with some of the lessons. And then another one of our biologists, Dane Bicey, who has a million connections in North Dakota. And he's been really helpful in finding a lot of the presenters and the landowners that we're going to work with. We have a water education specialist, Bonita Roswick, and she's from this Prairie Waters Conservation Organization. She's going to come in and she's got knowledge about invertebrates and aquatic habitats. Who else is on? We've got an extension agent from North Dakota State University who works with 4-H and those kinds of things, so she's got experience with young people and she's bringing that to our camp. Yeah, some U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service folks. Oh yeah, and Game and Fish too.

Elizabeth Polarski: Yeah, it's definitely a joint effort across the board. It's folks from every corner of the conservation space, education field.

Jared Henson: That's awesome. I think that's really, really important to show young people that conservation is not just a scientist and not just a game warden, because that's what they see a lot of times, right? If you are a hunter or fisherman, right? That's where a lot of times, but a lot of times it's that extension service or farm bill biologist or something like that that can be the most impactful on landscape as far as helping deliver conservation on the ground. That's fantastic. What else would y'all want to mention here?

Elizabeth Polarski: Final thoughts, or at least on my end, if you take anything away from this, anyone is welcome. Just apply. There is no commitment to send in an application. You can apply by the March 15th deadline. That's the date to keep in mind. It is at texasbrigades.org. There is an applications page that will take you to the North Dakota Waterfowl page. All that application information, but Any 13 to 17-year-old or incoming high school senior. I know sometimes the ages get, they can change on that top end. So if you're 18, but you're an incoming high school senior, you're good. But March 15th is the deadline to apply. Just send in an application. We can work out the logistics of timing and tuition assistance at a later date. But just apply by March 15th. We're super excited. July 8th through 12th, 2025 in Washburn, North Dakota.

Jared Henson: Jennifer, how many students are y'all taking?

Elizabeth Polarski: 20 to 25.

Jared Henson: Okay, so get on there and fill out your applications.

Jennifer Cross: Yeah, I guess some final thoughts for me are just, I'm really excited to just share the information and the beauties of the prairies to lots of other people. I think sometimes, you know, in North Dakota, we're driving along the road or whatever, and we just see grass and don't really understand how diverse and how beneficial it is for wildlife, but also for people, for us every day. Just bringing people out to actually walk on the landscape and experience it and see it firsthand is what I'm interested in doing. And I love working with young people and helping them with those experiences and just being impressed. I mean, Chase has been so impressive with some of the outreach stuff he's been doing. presented with me at a North Dakota chapter of the Wildlife Society meeting. And yeah, it takes a lot. It was a big group and it takes a lot to get up in front of some people. And I just, I don't know, I love to see that. I love to see young people grow and learn.

Jared Henson: Chase, do you have any closing thoughts, like anything you'd like to tell people?

Chase Schmidt: Oh yeah, if you, whether it be like hunting pheasants or mule deer, you fish ice fish or whatever it be, if you love anything in the outdoors, I would strongly suggest getting out to this camp and volunteering or anything, whether you're from Minnesota or Montana. I think it's a great opportunity and can really benefit you, whoever you are.

Jared Henson: Well, and I really wanted to bring y'all on here to talk about this because Jennifer reached out to us about the program and to get the name out for it and to get a word out about the camp. And I immediately was like, yeah, we need to be part of that and need to help out. With that, I want to tell the listeners, if this is something you're interested in, please go to texasbrigades.org. You can learn more about it there. This is the North Dakota Waterfowl Camp. And if you have any questions, you can reach out, I'm pretty sure, to Jennifer Cross. Is it jcross at ducks.org?

Jennifer Cross: And Elizabeth, too.

Jared Henson: And Elizabeth Polarski.

Jennifer Cross: jcross at ducks.org.

Jared Henson: So I just want to say if you have questions and you're curious about those things, please feel free to reach out. We'd love to talk to you. Anything that you can do to help educate the next generation is something we need to focus on. So please take a look at the program. I'm so glad everyone listened today. So thanks to the listeners. Jennifer, Elizabeth, and Chase, thank y'all so much. for coming on to the podcast today to talk about the North Dakota Waterfowl Camp and Texas Brigades. I got to give a great shout out to Chris Isaacs, our podcast producer over here. And again, thanks to the listeners for listening in. So we'll catch y'all on the next episode. Thanks for tuning in.