Nonprofit will lead efforts for the next three years

For the last couple of years, members of the Bob Jones Nature Center nonprofit organization have been running hikes, programs and other day-to-day operations at the sprawling Southlake site while the city has provided department support and maintained the building and property. This month, that relationship was formalized.

"It was kind of like a marriage; 18 months ago, Chris Tribble came to me and said, 'Let's make this legal,'" said Debra Edmondson, president of the Bob Jones Nature Center's board of directors.

She and Tribble, the city's community services director, worked through an agreement that would benefit both the group and the city: Southlake will maintain the building and grounds, and pay the nonprofit $100,000 annually to run activities there, and the nonprofit will focus on building up the center's offerings.

Creating a public-private partnership to run the center had been a longterm goal of the nonprofit, Edmondson said, and she expects it will mean big things for the preserve, especially because city funding will allow them to hire a larger staff, including a naturalist and education coordinator.

"We have amazing volunteers and they have done an incredible amount of work but it will really be incredible to have people who are really focused working with those volunteers to increase programming and spread awareness," center Executive Director Emily Galpin said.

As Edmondson put it, their first goal is to put Bob Jones Nature Center on the map. One of her first priorities is map-based, in fact. It will likely take a couple of years, but she and the city are focused on changing the center's entrance and signage from Bob Jones Road to White Chapel Boulevard.

The move will not only take traffic off of a residential street, but help increase the center's visibility to passing drivers and people enjoying the amenities at nearby Bob Jones Park.

Among the board's other plans are to begin offering a variety of educational hikes for visitors, increase nature and science programming for children and adults, and attract a consistent schedule of interactive speakers. The organization also plans to equip the center with everything it needs to serve as a venue for special events, to build a corporate retreat program and to strengthen the center's relationship with area school districts.

The center is getting something of a test run with those goals this year, working in partnership with the Fort Worth Nature Center to provide nature and science programs for underrepresented children in the Fort Worth ISD's after school program.

Edmondson has been involved in the center since she voted to build it in the late '90s as a member of the Southlake City Council, and she provided much of the nonprofit's seed money.

The City Council last year finalized a 25-year land lease that more than doubled the size of the preserve, expanding it to 577 acres, and signed off on a master plan that called for expanded trails, a new and expanded learning center, and continued preservation of the park's most sensitive nature areas.

"This organization has always had a team of incredibly dedicated volunteers, and this is an exciting step forward for them now to actually assume management and take it to the next level," said Councilwoman Carolyn Morris, who previously served on the center's board of directors. "I think this is a passionate group that can really champion the master plan."