In 1983, the ACA established the Guy D. Jordan Endowment Fund. The purpose of the fund is the same today as when it was started: "the ACA established the Guy D. Jordan Endowment to further the knowledge of the family Cichlidae through the awarding of monies to be used as scholarships or research funds, or as awards recognizing accomplishments. Awards will be made from the interest accrued to the Endowment which is funded from donations and gifts."
The first awards were presented in 1986 and to date over $100,000 has been awarded to nearly 70 projects. |
Jordan Fund Committee Report 6/25/17 – Wayne S. Leibel, Chair of GDJ Fund
I have been administering the Guy D. Jordan Awards for cichlid research since 2006 – this is my 12th year in 2017 (now). Given our recent discussions about ‘What ACA does’, it seemed appropriate to update my original February 2005 BB article on the History of the Jordan Endowment, which was just published in the May 2017 BB (vol. 292:26-37). It kind of drones on and on, but the most interesting part in my opinion is the list of the grants we have given out since our first year of awarding them in 1986. By my count (and complete lists of all the awards/awardees along with the BB articles published by awardees appear in the updated BB article), we have given out 71 grants from 1986-2017 over 32 years without missing a year. With an average of c. $1500 each, we have given out approximately $106,500 to date to Jordan recipients, including two this year 2017. The bulk of the awards have gone to students, typically graduate degree (M.S. and Ph.D.) candidates, but also the occasional undergraduate, and even new faculty members. The sums we are dealing with are really small potatoes in the grant world, but I’d like to think that we have been able to encourage nascent researchers to continue in that career as well as contribute to our expanding cichlid knowledge. The cumulative effect has become increasingly generative: previous awardees have gone on to get their degrees, land faculty positions and then themselves encourage their own students to apply for and land Jordan grants. So, I have, during my tenure as Jordan Endowment Administrator encouraged students to apply and have supported their applications to the best of my ability, by encouraging successive BOT’s to favor them. And I think we’ve done a great job. Indeed we even have injected money from our general operating fund into the Jordan pool when finances allowed so that we have been able to fund 4, 5, or even 6 proposals a year (2007 – 2011). We owe a lot to the ‘Babes in the Cichlid Hobby’, ACA Fellows Pam Chin, Caroline Estes and Pamela Marsh, whose tireless work soliciting funds for Jordan and Loiselle Funds at the annual convention has been invaluable: they have raised tens-of-thousands of dollars for both. In more recent years, our application numbers have been down but we have still reliably attracted 2 or 3 fundable applications a year. We have given out 34 grants in the 10 year period of 2007-2016. When it gets around deadline time (April) I am usually worrying that we have had no applications or even inquiries, but they always materialize. So, it’s a good thing we do, in my opinion and I hope we can continue to do so. Thanks to all of you who have donated or solicited donations (e.g. FACA Rusty Wessel, ‘the Babes’, etc.). Also to FACA Claudia Dickinson whose sweet demeanor was responsible for many years as BB Editor for charming the awardees into writing for BB (Note, we have a ‘memo of understanding’ that recipients sign before receiving checks which stipulate their obligation to write a popular article for BB (see the abovementioned bibliography in the recent BB update of Jordan Fund), but there really is no way to enforce it. –Claudia has been our secret weapon – thanks!!) That’s it for now. It has been my honor and privilege to keep the Fund running and realizing its mission of supporting cichlid research and enabling the training of our next group of cichlid researchers. We look forward to many more years of Jordan Fund support. |
List of Grants given by the ACA Guy Jordan Fund
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Below is an article that appeared in the ACA's BB (#292 May 2017) on the History of the Guy Jordan Fund write by Dr. Wayne Leibel. In many ways it is also a shortened history of the ACA itself.
A BOG’s History of the Guy D. Jordan Endowment Fund
Wayne S. Leibel
Department of Biology, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042
•[email protected]
Updated from an article that appeared in the February 2005 Buntbarsche Bulletin. (All images are from the original article.)
If you are around in an organization long enough, you become an ‘elder’, which is a polite way of saying ‘Boring Old Guy’ (BOG). There are many of us elders in the ACA, but there are also, thankfully, many new and relatively new members (‘new’ defined by me as ‘joined in the past 10 years’). We are particularly happy that you have joined so that new blood and new ideas will keep the American Cichlid Association fresh and perking along as the most successful and largest freshwater aquarium specialty group in America, now 50+ years old (founded in 1966)1. However, it has occurred to me through informal discussion with some of our ‘new’ members, even ‘new’ BOT members, that many of today’s membership don’t know about or clearly understand the history and purpose of some of our institutions and functions. One in particular is the venerable Guy D. Jordan Endowment Fund that is very visibly apparent at the annual convention through the Jordan Endowment fish auction and the very successful fundraising efforts of the “Babes in the Cichlid Hobby” (affectionately referred to as “The B.I.T.C.H.es”).
Wayne S. Leibel
Department of Biology, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042
•[email protected]
Updated from an article that appeared in the February 2005 Buntbarsche Bulletin. (All images are from the original article.)
If you are around in an organization long enough, you become an ‘elder’, which is a polite way of saying ‘Boring Old Guy’ (BOG). There are many of us elders in the ACA, but there are also, thankfully, many new and relatively new members (‘new’ defined by me as ‘joined in the past 10 years’). We are particularly happy that you have joined so that new blood and new ideas will keep the American Cichlid Association fresh and perking along as the most successful and largest freshwater aquarium specialty group in America, now 50+ years old (founded in 1966)1. However, it has occurred to me through informal discussion with some of our ‘new’ members, even ‘new’ BOT members, that many of today’s membership don’t know about or clearly understand the history and purpose of some of our institutions and functions. One in particular is the venerable Guy D. Jordan Endowment Fund that is very visibly apparent at the annual convention through the Jordan Endowment fish auction and the very successful fundraising efforts of the “Babes in the Cichlid Hobby” (affectionately referred to as “The B.I.T.C.H.es”).
Another well known ACA elder, founding member and ACA Fellow Dick Stratton, offered his take on Guy and the Jordan Endowment in an article published in April 1997 (BB 167:1-4. “The World According to Guy Jordan”). It is a terrific account of Guy the person (Dick’s ACA co-founder and personal friend) and of the Endowment created in his name, and is well worth reading if you have access to back issues (cichlid.org: back issues available as pdf files for members). Another accounting of the Endowment by Stratton also appears in the June 1998 BB (186:14-16). But given the high rate of turnover in our great hobby, and the probable influx of many new members after that 1997 article, I would wager that at least half of the current membership, if not more, has only heard of the Jordan Endowment without actually knowing its history and understanding its intent, or even who Guy Jordan was. This article then is my attempt as an official ‘Boring Old Guy’… er … ACA elder … to offer up a more recent recounting of the why’s and wherefores of this important ACA institution and activity as I remember it directly and as viewed through the lens of old BBs. And maybe it will even jumpstart the other elders’ memories about this important facet of our educational and informational mission as an organization. You know how memory fades or even changes when you become a BOG.
On November 9, 1983, ACA Founder Guy D. Jordan passed on. If you don’t know who Guy was, the February 1984 BB (100) was dedicated to Guy, features a drawing of him and his dear Parachromis dovii ‘Pablo’ on the cover and contains tributes from the likes of ACA stalwarts Jean Davies, Dick Stratton, Jim Langhammer and Jim Mortensen: all ACAers who had been there at or near the start of the organization in 1966 and knew Guy well. Friends and admirers of Guy’s wanted to do something to commemorate his central role in ACA (he understandably was made the first Fellow of the ACA [FACA]), and so the BOT first established a special award in his name, The Guy Jordan Cichlid Show Champion, which was given annually to that ACA member who amassed the most points in ACA-sanctioned shows. In then BOT Chair David Herlong’s “State of the ACA” address given at the 1983 Convention, and which appears in printed form in BB 98 (October 1983), he announces that the first year of this program had just ended, and that the Jordan Show Champ winner that year was (my friend and still ACAer) George Fear of New Jersey2. (No, not Ron Georgeone: I bet he wasn’t even into fish yet!).
Since Guy’s interest or hobby focus had never been in showing fish, rather in promoting knowledge about cichlids (through his writing and tape-spondence with friends and other hobbyists), it was felt that “something else” should be done in his honor. (The Cichlid Show Champ Award was soon thereafter renamed the Patrick Mahoney Award, after another ACA ‘showman’ who, along with his wife Maggi, was responsible for sanctioning ACA shows, and who passed on in this time frame on December 12, 1985 – his ACA obituary appears in BB 112 February 1986.) In early 1984, just after Guy’s death, his sister Lorraine approached Ross Socolof (also a founding member, FACA and Jordan Restrospective Awardee) about establishing a fund in Guy’s memory. She offered, with another sister, to donate substantial seed money for that purpose (the figure $10,000 comes to mind – a lot of cash in 1984). Socolof was charged with bringing the matter (this gift) to the BOT, conveying the sisters’ intent in this gift, and steering the creation of an award (establishing a deed of gift) that would appropriately reflect Guy’s interests. I was elected to the BOT for my first term January 1984-December 1986, and thus was privy to the momentous discussions surrounding development of the Jordan Fund. We discussed the possibilities at the annual ACA BOT meeting held as usual at the convention in July 1984, that year in Dayton, Ohio. The 1984 BOT consisted of myself, FACA Steve Somermeyer as Chair, Delores Schehr as secretary, Linda Bender (then TP editor), aforementioned George Fear, FACA David Herlong, the late Thomas Koziol, and Ron Jodlowski. FACA Ross Socolof was there as well, of course, along with several other important ACA members who knew Guy well and were interested in the establishment of the fund (e.g., FACA Randy Crout (former BB editor), FACA Paul V. Loiselle, and FACA Jim Mortensen (former membership chair) come to mind).
I am sure the actual minutes for that BOT meeting (presumably in the ACA archives?) would show exactly what was hammered out, but BB 104 October 1984 has two brief accounts. Jim Mortensen’s diary format account of Convention ’84 includes this about the Friday BOT meeting: “The Jordan Endowment is the big thing. We spent most of the last two hours on it and have yet to solve it completely, but we have a good working start and it should fall into place tomorrow. Guy would have enjoyed our dilemma. It has to be done right as it may just be one of the more important things ACA has ever done, changing this Association from a group of hobbyists into a genuine educational organization that is giving something back to the hobby. ACA owes that to Guy.” Mortensen’s entry for Saturday includes: “Another two hours of BOT meetings. We finish up the Jordan Fund to everyone’s satisfaction. I think this is going to be something with which all ACAers will be proud to be associated. I am sure Guy would have approved. Too bad we had to wait until he was gone to be pushed into it.”
In BOT Chair Steve Somermeyer’s “State of the ACA” address given at the Dayton convention and published in this same BB he announces: “As you have read in past issues, Guy Jordan died last year and left a void not only in the ACA but in many hearts as well. Perhaps the most important action any ACA BOT has taken was the establishment of the Guy D. Jordan Endowment at our Dayton meetings. In his memory and spirit we established the Endowment to further the knowledge of cichlids through scholarships, funding of research or as awards for accomplishments. It is organized such that not only are scientific proposals eligible, but also accomplishments by hobbyists. Already five clubs have donated at least $200 each with a number of others expected soon. To facilitate and attract contributions, the ACA, which was incorporated late last year (1983), is now applying for non-profit/tax exempt status. Inquiries may be directed to David Herlong. Let it not be said that the ACA is resting on its laurels; we are constantly striving to better the knowledge of cichlids and to better serve our membership.”
In the August 1985 BB, just after the 1985 Convention in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, editor Randy Crout writes in his editorial: “As many of the members know, the BOT created the Guy Jordan Endowment Fund last year in order to fund or award research by scientists or aquarists in the field of cichlids. The ACA, in order to make contributions more attractive to you, is in the process of becoming a non-profit/tax exempt organization. If we are accepted by the IRS, your contributions would become tax deductible. We will keep you informed. However, notwithstanding the ACA’s legal position in this matter, your contributions to this fund would be much appreciated. They would go for an excellent cause, and, of course the fund is in honor of our greatest member, the now deceased Guy Jordan. Your contributions should be sent to David Herlong … (his address) … with your checks made payable to the ACA Guy Jordan Endowment Fund.” Ross Socolof was instrumental in soliciting donations for the fund from the Florida Fish Farmers with whom he enjoyed excellent relations and even cult status. It didn’t hurt that Randy Crout was a lawyer and assumed the task of ACA legal counsel, incorporating us in Glen Burnie, MD where he lived, and ultimately getting us non-profit status.
A formal announcement of the fund appears in the October 1985 BB 110. It is a full-page article which I won’t duplicate here in its entirety but here are some excerpts that are instructive:
“Shortly after Guy’s death in November 1983, the ACA established the Guy D. Jordan Endowment to further the knowledge of the family Cichlidae through the awarding of monies to be used as scholarships or research funds, or as awards recognizing accomplishments. Awards will be made from the interest accrued to the Endowment which is funded from donations and gifts. All monies donated to the Jordan Endowment will be used solely for the purpose of making the annual awards; they will not be used for the operating expenses of the ACA in general.”
“There will be two categories in which awards will be made annually. There will be a prospective award that will be based on submitted proposals of research on the family Cichlidae. These proposals may address any aspect of research and may include, but will not be limited to, taxonomy, ecology, genetics and behavior. The award is not intended to fund the research entirely, but is intended to augment or assist in the completion of a particular study.”
“There will also be a meritorious award which will be made in recognition of accomplishments in the maintenance, breeding and care of cichlids. This award will deal specifically with work already accomplished and the recipient will be selected from nominated candidates. Anyone can nominate a candidate for this award. Announcements of the annual awards will be made at the annual ACA Convention. If the selection committee fails to identify suitable candidates for the awards, awards will not be made. Results or summaries of work for which awards are made will be published in BB.”
“The establishment of the Guy D. Jordan Endowment Fund by the ACA marks a new era for the cichlid world. This Endowment will be another method for disseminating knowledge of cichlids, the primary goal of the ACA, by rewarding those who study and maintain them.” The article is signed “David Herlong 1984 Chairman and Steven Somermeyer, 1985 Chairman Elect, ACA Guy D. Jordan Endowment Fund”.
“Shortly after Guy’s death in November 1983, the ACA established the Guy D. Jordan Endowment to further the knowledge of the family Cichlidae through the awarding of monies to be used as scholarships or research funds, or as awards recognizing accomplishments. Awards will be made from the interest accrued to the Endowment which is funded from donations and gifts. All monies donated to the Jordan Endowment will be used solely for the purpose of making the annual awards; they will not be used for the operating expenses of the ACA in general.”
“There will be two categories in which awards will be made annually. There will be a prospective award that will be based on submitted proposals of research on the family Cichlidae. These proposals may address any aspect of research and may include, but will not be limited to, taxonomy, ecology, genetics and behavior. The award is not intended to fund the research entirely, but is intended to augment or assist in the completion of a particular study.”
“There will also be a meritorious award which will be made in recognition of accomplishments in the maintenance, breeding and care of cichlids. This award will deal specifically with work already accomplished and the recipient will be selected from nominated candidates. Anyone can nominate a candidate for this award. Announcements of the annual awards will be made at the annual ACA Convention. If the selection committee fails to identify suitable candidates for the awards, awards will not be made. Results or summaries of work for which awards are made will be published in BB.”
“The establishment of the Guy D. Jordan Endowment Fund by the ACA marks a new era for the cichlid world. This Endowment will be another method for disseminating knowledge of cichlids, the primary goal of the ACA, by rewarding those who study and maintain them.” The article is signed “David Herlong 1984 Chairman and Steven Somermeyer, 1985 Chairman Elect, ACA Guy D. Jordan Endowment Fund”.
At the 1986 Convention in Milwaukee WI, then ACA BOT Chair Paul Loiselle announced the awarding of the first Jordan Endowment prospective (research) awards, from interest derived from the exponentially growing fund. As per Fund protocol, applicants submitted detailed grant requests that were read by a panel of outside scientific reviewers (Loiselle sent them out) and three were recommended to the BOT for funding, which they were. This included one to Axel Meyer, then a West German graduate student at UC Berkeley (who was much later effusively thankful (to me) for his modest award of c. $500) in support of research on red devils and P. managuensis in Lake Nicaragua. Meyer later went on to pioneer the use of gene sequencing in elucidating the evolutionary relatedness and history of cichlids and became and still is quite famous in international academic circles. BOT Chair Loiselle’s one-page announcement of these first prospective awards (the others were to Marcie Friedman and Peter Wimburger, then both also graduate students) appears in BB 115 August 1986. I believe we have given yearly Jordan Endowment prospective awards to at least one applicant, and usually more, each year since 1986 (30 years worth as of 2016), which is a lot of awardees and a lot of cichlid research. (A more-or-less complete list of awardees, projects and resulting BB articles appears at the end of this article.) The process has remained the same, though the people in charge of the scientific review have changed (Dr Loiselle; to Dr Melanie Stiassny (1990); to Dr George Barlow (1998); to Dr Wayne Leibel (2006 -current) and as fund coordinators Herlong to Somermeyer to Loiselle (as BOT Chairs ‘84,’85,’86); to Socolof (1987); to Langhammer (1989); to Stratton (1990); to Tim Hovanec (treasurer).
986 BB 116. Randy Crout, chairing the retrospective committee writes: “As the membership read in BB 115, the Guy D. Jordan Endowment announced the awarding of its first three grant-in-aids in what may best be known as the ‘scientific’ category. As some of you may know, the Jordan Endowment was set up for two purposes: (1) to provide financial aid to those dealing with research on the family Cichlidae and (2) to award accomplishments in the maintenance, breeding and care of cichlids (meant primarily for hobbyists). This announcement is intended to solicit nominees for the second category, i.e. the ‘hobbyist’ category. The ACA encourages local hobby groups to consider nomination of members who have done serious, documented studies of the family Cichlidae. However, the category is quite broad and allows recognition for important contributions to the knowledge of cichlids. The Jordan Endowment intends to grant an award in this category in 1987.”
Regarding the Jordan Retrospective Award (called the ‘meritorious’ award by Crout), the first formal description and announcement appears in October 1
Indeed we did: Pierre Brichard – of Congo and Lake Tanganyika cichlid export fame – was honored for his meritorious lifetime achievements. The formal announcement appeared in BB 122, October 1987. The review committee was Randy Crout, Jim Langhammer, and Jean Davies. Crout writes: “The Retrospective Award Committee has selected Pierre Brichard to be the recipient of its first award in the Retrospective category. His contributions to the aquarium hobby and to the scientific community are well documented. He has introduced many cichlids to the aquarium hobby, with several cichlids bearing his name, and his book on the cichlids of Lake Tanganyika was the first comprehensive book for the aquarist on these amazing cichlids.” As was the intent of the Retrospective Award, they have not been given annually. Indeed the other sporadic recipients have included: Dr George Barlow (1995), Dr Paul Loiselle (2000), Ross Socolof (2001), Ad Konings (2003), Dick Stratton (2005), Juan Miguel Artigas Azas (2008), and Wayne Leibel (2010). Please note, as per the fund description, any ACA member aquarium hobby, with several cichlids can nominate any person for receipt of a Jordan Retrospective (Lifetime Achievement/Meritorious) Award, by approaching the ACA BOT with said nominee and a written justification thereof for the BOT’s consideration. Jordan Retrospective Awards are truly special ‘Cichlid Hall of Fame’ awards, and are not (and have not been) given out easily. But they are based on suggestions from members, not a scientific review board like the annual ‘prospective’ (proposed research) awards.
Indeed we did: Pierre Brichard – of Congo and Lake Tanganyika cichlid export fame – was honored for his meritorious lifetime achievements. The formal announcement appeared in BB 122, October 1987. The review committee was Randy Crout, Jim Langhammer, and Jean Davies. Crout writes: “The Retrospective Award Committee has selected Pierre Brichard to be the recipient of its first award in the Retrospective category. His contributions to the aquarium hobby and to the scientific community are well documented. He has introduced many cichlids to the aquarium hobby, with several cichlids bearing his name, and his book on the cichlids of Lake Tanganyika was the first comprehensive book for the aquarist on these amazing cichlids.” As was the intent of the Retrospective Award, they have not been given annually. Indeed the other sporadic recipients have included: Dr George Barlow (1995), Dr Paul Loiselle (2000), Ross Socolof (2001), Ad Konings (2003), Dick Stratton (2005), Juan Miguel Artigas Azas (2008), and Wayne Leibel (2010). Please note, as per the fund description, any ACA member aquarium hobby, with several cichlids can nominate any person for receipt of a Jordan Retrospective (Lifetime Achievement/Meritorious) Award, by approaching the ACA BOT with said nominee and a written justification thereof for the BOT’s consideration. Jordan Retrospective Awards are truly special ‘Cichlid Hall of Fame’ awards, and are not (and have not been) given out easily. But they are based on suggestions from members, not a scientific review board like the annual ‘prospective’ (proposed research) awards.
It should also be made clear, however, that while the ‘prospective’ awards, which require formal grant submission and outside review, were aimed primarily at scientists, particularly graduate students and intended to encourage their education, hobbyists were not excluded from applying for these funds. I can remember at least two grant applications from technical ‘non-scientists’ intending to do formal research, and there may have been more. One of these was from Dan Fromm who was awarded a grant in 1991 (see “Report on 1991 Field Trip to Costa Rica” in BB 151: 4-12). The other hobbyist application was regrettably not recommended for funding by the outside reviewers. Nevertheless, it was a worthy and welcome try and ‘hobbyists’ are still invited to apply.
In 1987, the ACA sponsored, with Ross Socolof’s driving force, re-printing of Al Klee’s series of 22 articles from the Aquarium Magazine 1967-71 “History of the Tropical Fish Hobby in America” – Klee, Socolof and longtime ACA friend Lee Finley retyped (Aline Finley) and produced 300 hardbound copies, signed by Klee and numbered, which sold for $35, all profit/donation to the Jordan Fund. (See announcement in BB 120 June 1987 – by BB 121 two months later, 200/300 had been sold and they later all sold out netting a tidy $10,500 profit, less production costs, banked directly into the fund!) They are now collector’s items fetching $100-$200 on eBay, etc. Al Klee3 was one of the ‘intellectual founders’ of the ACA, suggesting in 1965 to Dick Stratton and Guy Jordan that a cichlid roundtable, based on the ‘killie roundtable’ of the AKA (American Killifish Association) be started. And so they did, in 1966, circulating a series of newsletters that eventually evolved into BB and the ACA.
I don’t know offhand when the Florida fish farmers were solicited and began contributing fish to our convention auctions, but my guess is that Ross Socolof got this set up early on, perhaps even before the Fund language/deed of gift had been hammered out by the BOT. By the time Socolof stepped down in 1989, BB records that he had himself brought $30,000 to the Endowment Fund. Later, Socolof’s protégé FACA Rusty Wessel took over and continued to successfully solicit Jordan Fund fish donations for many years. More recently Ken Davis stepped in (North Jersey Convention ’01) with help from Rusty. And of course most recently, the Babes in the Cichlid Hobby (B.I.T.C.H.: Caroline Estes, Pam Chin, Pam Marsh – all three FACA) started (at the North Jersey Convention ’01) their incredible convention auctions that have boosted both the Jordan and more recently Loiselle (Conservation) Fund Endowments for the past several years to the tune of many thousands of dollars each year. Atta gals! The principal of the Jordan Endowment has grown over the years, from that initial $10,000 seed into over $100,000 thanks to the generous donations of numerous individuals, aquarium hobby organizations, and businesses! We thank you!
The annual interest from this nest egg, which varies from year to year based on the current state of the economy has funded anywhere from 1-6 cichlid research projects annually at a per project support of anywhere from $500-$1500 each (as monies are available, dependent on the applicants’ stated needs and the recommendation of the outside science reviewer and the ACA BOT). Given that the first awards were made at the 1986 Convention to three and with over 30 years of continuous ACA Jordan Endowment funding, that’s a lot of cichlid research! Granted, these awards of c. $1500 or typically less are ‘small potatoes’ given the usual needs and budgets of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars usually requested by most established investigators for their research. But these small grants have made a big difference in the educational lives of numerous graduate students needing a plane ticket to a field station, or a portable pH meter or video camera, or for lab chemicals and supplies, or even for the cichlids themselves so they can finish their graduate thesis work and continue on in the profession. And several of these former Jordan Awardees have gone on (and will go on) to become ‘names’ in the cichlid research pantheon and continue to contribute to our understanding of the basic biology of those incredible fish, our beloved cichlids! We in the ACA have helped water if not plant the seed of this research through the Jordan Fund.
The annual interest from this nest egg, which varies from year to year based on the current state of the economy has funded anywhere from 1-6 cichlid research projects annually at a per project support of anywhere from $500-$1500 each (as monies are available, dependent on the applicants’ stated needs and the recommendation of the outside science reviewer and the ACA BOT). Given that the first awards were made at the 1986 Convention to three and with over 30 years of continuous ACA Jordan Endowment funding, that’s a lot of cichlid research! Granted, these awards of c. $1500 or typically less are ‘small potatoes’ given the usual needs and budgets of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars usually requested by most established investigators for their research. But these small grants have made a big difference in the educational lives of numerous graduate students needing a plane ticket to a field station, or a portable pH meter or video camera, or for lab chemicals and supplies, or even for the cichlids themselves so they can finish their graduate thesis work and continue on in the profession. And several of these former Jordan Awardees have gone on (and will go on) to become ‘names’ in the cichlid research pantheon and continue to contribute to our understanding of the basic biology of those incredible fish, our beloved cichlids! We in the ACA have helped water if not plant the seed of this research through the Jordan Fund.
And in supporting the Jordan Endowment and awarding these yearly grants, we continue to live our mission as an organization: “to gather, organize and disseminate knowledge of cichlids” and “to further the conservation of species and their natural habitats” (please refer to any BB for a full statement of our mission). How nice that this mission is, in part, realized thanks to an Endowment Fund started over 30 years ago in memory of one of our founding fathers, Guy D. Jordan. And so says this BOG, err … elder.
Footnotes
1 For a short history of ACA as Guy remembered it, please see his article “ACA’s First Fifteen Years: Conversations with Guy”, by Jim Mortensen, written from six-plus years of tape-spondence between Mortensen (early ACA Membership Chair for countless years) and Jordan: the article was published in BB 96, June 1983, less than six months before Guy passed on. For other accounts see Dick Stratton’s “The Origin of the ACA” in December 1989 BB 135:23-26 and Jim Langhammer’s December 1993 article “ACA’s Early History” in BB 159:1-2.
2 He also mentions that in order to help Randy Crout with production of BB, ACA had authorized the purchase of a “Radio Shack® word processor.” He writes “As the BB Editor is a volunteer job (as are all ACA jobs), this new technology will help make time spent of highest quality so we can continue to produce a first-class publication.” In fact, they handed that word processor down to me when I became editor in 1986 (I wrote in my editorial in April 1986 BB 113 “It’s official, the BB computer and files reside in PA …” – I drove down to Glen Burnie, MD to pick them up from Randy). Imagine producing BB without a computer – typing articles, cut and paste layouts … pardon me, I digress … remember, I am a “Boring Old Guy”, errr ... elder … with adult onset attention deficit disorder (AQ-ADD).
1 For a short history of ACA as Guy remembered it, please see his article “ACA’s First Fifteen Years: Conversations with Guy”, by Jim Mortensen, written from six-plus years of tape-spondence between Mortensen (early ACA Membership Chair for countless years) and Jordan: the article was published in BB 96, June 1983, less than six months before Guy passed on. For other accounts see Dick Stratton’s “The Origin of the ACA” in December 1989 BB 135:23-26 and Jim Langhammer’s December 1993 article “ACA’s Early History” in BB 159:1-2.
2 He also mentions that in order to help Randy Crout with production of BB, ACA had authorized the purchase of a “Radio Shack® word processor.” He writes “As the BB Editor is a volunteer job (as are all ACA jobs), this new technology will help make time spent of highest quality so we can continue to produce a first-class publication.” In fact, they handed that word processor down to me when I became editor in 1986 (I wrote in my editorial in April 1986 BB 113 “It’s official, the BB computer and files reside in PA …” – I drove down to Glen Burnie, MD to pick them up from Randy). Imagine producing BB without a computer – typing articles, cut and paste layouts … pardon me, I digress … remember, I am a “Boring Old Guy”, errr ... elder … with adult onset attention deficit disorder (AQ-ADD).