Decades of Passion & Services to Texas Stream Team: Rachel Sanborn Receives the 2020 Golden Secchi Disk Award Winner
Decades of Passion & Services to Texas Stream Team: Rachel Sanborn Receives the 2020 Golden Secchi Disk Award Winner
In the realm of Texas Stream Team water quality monitoring, no one radiates more enthusiasm and dedication than Rachel Sanborn. From leading one of our biggest monitoring groups, the San Marcos River Rangers, to training over 456 citizen scientists, Rachel is an all-star ambassador for our program. Selecting her as our 2020 Golden Secchi Disk Awardee, also known as the Citizen Scientist of the Year Award, was a hands-down decision for all of us at Texas Stream Team.
Becoming a certified Texas Stream Team citizen scientist in 1997, Rachel’s impressive history with our program now spans more than two decades. With 645 trainings under her belt, she has trained many of the trainers currently within our Texas Stream Team program (some who have gone on to coordinate watersheds, lead City positions, and more).
Generous with her time and talents, Rachel has played a vital role in supporting our other San Marcos Texas Stream Team group, Bobcat Stream Team, by helping recently certified University students get established at a monitoring site so that they can begin contributing water quality data to our program. Some University students even stay with Rachel well after they have graduated.
And while many of us are still working to create new routines during COVID-19, the pandemic hasn’t slowed down Rachel. At one point, Rachel was the only trainer in the state of Texas leading trainings. She has been an absolute savior for Texas Stream Team during COVID-19 by going above the call of duty and leading small, socially-distanced trainings multiple times a month to ensure all who are interested in getting certified during this time have the opportunity to do so.
It’s hard to come up with adequate words to describe how grateful we are for Rachel’s service to Texas Stream Team, so we’ll leave you with the following numbers that highlight the impact she has had on our program:
- Certified, active Texas Stream Team Citizen Scientist since 1997
- Certified Texas Stream Team Standard Core Trainer since 2003
- Has led 645 trainings since 2004
- Trained over 456 citizen scientists
- Leads the San Marcos River Rangers Monitoring Group, which includes 92 active citizen scientists (monitors are considered active if they have monitored within the past 12 months) that collect data from 28 monitoring sites along the San Marcos River (monitoring sites are considered active if monitored within the past 12 months)
Thank you for all that you do for us, Rachel! You have made an unforgettable difference to Texas Stream Team.
About the Golden Secchi Award
In October of 2018, Texas Stream Team celebrated training its 10,000th citizen scientist through a Texas Stream Team festival with partners, citizen scientists, and friends. During this event, Texas Steam Team staff decided to create a yearly award to commemorate our most dedicated citizen scientists called the Golden Secchi Award, also known as the Citizen Scientist of the Year Award. This award remains at Texas Stream Team Headquarters so that it may be etched each year with the recipient’s name.