Garry Tucker Oral History Transcript

Garry recounts growing up on a farm in Minneola, Alabama where they raised cattle and farmed corn, cotton and soybeans. After graduating high school in 1973, he went to college at Auburn University earning a bachelor’s degree in secondary science education. While at Auburn, he met his wife, Sandy. Garry taught high school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for two years, while Sandy was in graduate school at LSU. In 1980, they moved back to Auburn, so that Garry could go to graduate school. Shortly after that, Sandy got her first job with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in Decatur, Alabama. After receiving a masters in entomology, he began working for the State of Alabama as an agricultural “honeybee” inspector.  He later worked in a landscaping business and also taught high school biology for about nine years.  By 1991, Garry and Sandy have two daughters, ages six and two years old, and Sandy accepts a job with FWS in Anchorage, Alaska.  Garry relates his experience working for the Imaginarium Science Discovery Museum as a science educator and travels to the rural parts of Alaska with exhibits and curriculum. They left Alaska in 1994, when Sandy took a position at the “new” National Conservation Training Center (still in the planning stages in 1994). This is where Garry began his career with the FWS in the Division of Education Outreach as a training technician and course leader. Years later, they moved to Georgia where Sandy worked in the Ecological Services (ES) offices and Garry worked in the Division of Planning and then in the Division of Visitor Services in Refuges as Chief of Visitor Services for the southeast region. It was during this time that he became involved with the Federal Duck Stamp contest, which he really enjoyed.