Society for Range Management recognizes Gourley
Blayr Gourley of Copan, Oklahoma, received an Outstanding Young Range Professional Award at the recent Society for Range Management’s 71st Annual Meeting, Technical Training and Trade Show in Sparks, Nevada. The Outstanding Young Range Professional Award recognizes SRM members who exhibit superior performance and leadership potential in any range-related area.
Gourley received her bachelor’s and master’s from Oklahoma State University. Her graduate work involved the creation of the website, The Prairie Project, which provides rangeland education curriculum for educators and youth. She previously worked for Oklahoma State University in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management as an extension associate. At OSU, she was instrumental in creating and managing the eXtension Prescribed Fire Community of Practice. She assisted with multiple range management, prescribed fire and wildlife field days throughout the southern Great Plains. Additionally, she worked as the coordinator for the Great Plains Fire Science Exchange, to disseminate research-based fire information throughout the Great Plains.
Gourley currently works for CHLOETA, as a Wildland Fire Planner. She and her husband, Adam, operate Open Range Management, LLC just outside the Flint Hills in northeastern Oklahoma. They also run a Black Angus cow-calf herd in the Flint Hills of Kansas and in Oklahoma.
Gourley is also very active within the Society for Range Management at both the Section and Parent Society levels. She has served as an officer to the Oklahoma Section of SRM for seven years and has provided website and program development services for 5 SRM Parent Society conferences. Gourley uses social media as an outreach platform for range management.
For her accomplishments, Gourley is most deserving of this 2018 Society for Range Management Outstanding Young Range Professional Award.
