A few weeks ago Kristen wrote a post about our new keeper, Cassidy. I first met Cassidy about 13 years ago when she started volunteering in the animal department. She was a great “youth partner”. So great, that in 1998 she was the Durham Volunteer Center’s Youth Volunteer of the Year and won the Governor’s Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service that same year.

She went off to college, and my interaction with Cassidy was limited to providing references for her, for school and her two previous jobs at Grandfather Mountain and The Duke Lemur Center. So, I was very excited when a job opened up here at the beginning of the year and she applied. Like Cassidy, several of the current animal keepers started as volunteers. I like to think that it was her initial time with us at the Museum that got her excited about working with animals as an adult.

As with all the other great people who work with us, Cassidy brings unique interests and skills. Her experience working with lemurs is one of her unique contributions to our crew, and with the exception of Keeper Kent, Dr. Staab-Carter and myself, has the most years of experience in the animal department. We’ll try and get Cassidy to write a “guest blogger” post to the blog so you can hear from her directly, but for now since she’s only been a keeper for 4 months, she’s still learning the ropes.