Each year, the Lincoln County Conservation District sponsors the national Conservation Poster contest organized by the National Association of Conservation Districts in our schools. Students are educated on the current year’s theme by Hayley Gloeckner of University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.
The posters are grouped by grades, judged and cash prizes awarded by the Lincoln County Conservation District at school award ceremonies. The top three places compete at the Nevada Association of Conservation Districts’ meeting in the fall. Any first place winners at the state level are sent to the national contest in Washington DC.
For the first time, Lincoln County had a winner at the national level. Matthew Hafen of Panaca received an honorable mention in the Grades 2 to 3 category for his poster illustrating the “Soil to Spoon” theme. This theme discussed where our food comes from, and how soil and its health are what sustains all life on earth. We would not be alive or have anything to eat, clean water to drink or air to breathe were it not for soils!
Also competing at the national level was Shayla Mathews of Dry Valley who earned a participation certificate for her poster.
Conservation districts are local units of government established under state law to carry out incentive-driven natural resource management programs at the local level. They were established during the 1930s to help local people care for their soils and other resources on their lands and in their towns. They are still working today to bring good conservation to the lands of Lincoln County and throughout the United States.
