Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Texans don’t seem to be familiar with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation.

03— We’re a well-kept secret – unfortunately.

Anne Brown is Executive Director of the Foundation.

14—Our mission is to provide private support to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to manage and conserve natural and cultural resources of Texas. But, we always like to say we leverage private philanthropy with public funding for impactful change in Texas.

And that means reaching out to potential donors to support the agency’s “aspirational” projects.

12— We do not raise money for operating – mowing the lawn and things like that. We choose high priority projects of the department, and we focus on raising private dollars to help support those projects.

We’ll learn how projects are decided and how strong partnerships make them a reality.

10— The first thing we do is we sit down with the department and their staff, and based on the direction they’re getting from the commission – what are important projects that rise to the top as a priority for Texas as a whole.

Meantime, find more information about the foundation in the April issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine.

We record our series in Austin at The Block House. Joel Block engineers our program.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

This is Passport to Texas

Spring in Texas is a colorful time of year thanks to wildflowers growing statewide. Jackie Poole says these native plants create a sense of place.

09— That is something Ladybird Johnson said that was so great about these wildflowers: they really are unique to different areas.

I spoke with Jackie, a TPW Botanist, at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. To get a sense of how wildflowers define a locale, she says look beyond the roadside.

20—If you get away from the roadside, you’ll notice that the wildflowers are different in South Texas to Central Texas to the Trans Pecos to East Texas to the High Plains. And so, they’re all unique; it’s like having a home town. You can always go back and you can recognize these areas of the state by the plants that are growing there.

Bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes are winding down, making way for other flower forms.

21— [Such as] Little yellow daisy-like flowers. Later in May, there’s a plant that called the basket flower; it’s a tall plant, three to four to even six feet tall with large pinkish-white flowers. Right before that, you’ll have Mexican Hats and Fire wheels starting in April and going through May and maybe even going into June.

Find more wildflower information at the TWP website.

That’s our show for today… Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.