Minutes for SCHSB Annual Business Meeting – 29 January 2026, 8:00pm Eastern. Presentation slides available here.
Meeting called to order 29 Jan 2026, 8:05pm Eastern by Jason Webster. In attendance: Jason Webster, Lori Marion, Amy Wheeler, Kirk Barton, Crystal Criswell, Tamara Lambdin-Abney, and 9 guests.
Board of Directors & Elections
Presented by Jason Webster
Outgoing 2025 officers:
- President – Jason Webster
- Vice President – Lori Marion
- Secretary – Tara Seltz (resigned 11/2025)
- Treasurer – Crystal Criswell
- Directors – Elizabeth Hernandez, Tamara Lambdin-Abney, Amy Wheeler, Kirk Barton (appointed 11/2025)
New 2026 Officers and Terms:
- President – Jason Webster – December 2028
- Vice President – Lori Marion – December 2028
- Secretary – Amy Wheeler – December 2028
- Treasurer – Kirk Barton – December 2026
- Directors
- Elizabeth Hernandez – December 2026
- Tamara Lambdin-Abney – December 2026
- Crystal Criswell – December 2028
Next Elections – December 2026 – 5 seats open (2 currently vacant)
Annual Report
Presented by Crystal Criswell
SCHSB Numbers
There are over 20,000 animals in our registry since the beginning of recording. Flock numbers for 2025 include 990 Registrations and 557 Transfers. During 2025 we gained 49 new members and 76 members renewed their memberships. When viewing historical data, treat the 2024 numbers with caution as there may be a reporting error because that was the first full year we used Grassroots.
Fiscal Report
For 2025 our total revenue was $14,246 and total expenses was $14,970. We basically broke even which is what a non-profit is supposed to do. We spent $6,592 on administrative and operational expenses, and $8,378 on our programs. Our opening balance was $19,387.00 on January 1, and we ended the year with $18,660.12.
Accomplishments
Presented by Lori Marion
- Launched Water Trough Chats
- First Thursday of the month at 7pm Eastern.
- The link is on the website and in Facebook and it’s the same link every month
- Breeders can bring questions to talk about issues with one or several directors and experienced members there. It’s a way to get multiple viewpoints and options and solutions.
- Co-hosted the 50th year celebration at the USU Shepherds Symposium
- We’d like to recognize Dr. Chad Page, at USU who was very helpful at setting this up!
- About 35 members were able to attend either in person or virtually.
- We had an opportunity to speak with Cole Evans who initiated the very first registry. He handled and worked with the original St. Croix.
- Included a video interview with Dr. Foote, who directed the program, and more or less wrote the book on St. Croix when they were first imported. He’s now in his 90s.
- We had presentations by Dr. Wildeus of Virginia State, Dr. Rios of the University of the Virgin Islands and Scott Bowdridge of West Virginia University as well as by USDA personnel about managing predation by wildlife drone use, and toxic weed identification.
- Videos of each session are available on the SCHSB YouTube channel.
- Continued work with the Genetics Project
- We had a meeting with an eight-member committee through 2024 to determine a direction for the future of the project.
- Ten samples are being analyzed from USU and VSU. These university-based extension research flocks will be evaluated for purebred status, with the possibility of returning the flock to the registry.
- More details coming later in the meeting under “Genetics Project Update”
- Added Classifieds to website
- By popular member request, we’ve added classifieds to the website, while the listings in Grassroots are still available there at no charge.
- There is a nominal charge for advertising to cover the program that’s used to maintain the safety of member’s information and the formatting.
- Expanded our advertising efforts.
- American Sheep Industry Association’s Sheep Industry News
- The Livestock Conservancy breeder’s directory and quarterly newsletter.
- We’ve also had some members attend some local sheep events
- We have a banner that we can loan to a SCHSB member who’s attending a sheep or an AG presentation and exhibiting there.
- Also have pamphlets and business cards to help people find us.
Genetics Project Update
Presented by Lori Marion
Between 2022-2024, 15 members submitted 93 samples from phenotypically diverse St Croix sheep. Analysis shows that St Croix sheep cluster distinctly apart from other breeds, including other breeds that originate in the Caribbean. Dr. Brenda Murdoch from the University of Idaho is still involved and is helping us with interpretation of the genetic results.
University flocks were invited to submit samples as a pilot for registry re-admittance. Utah State and Virginia State have each submitted 5 samples, which are being analyzed now. This encourages universities to use St Croix sheep in their research. Benefit to association and membership is that any research done using these flocks clearly applies to sheep in the SCHSB registry. A good relationship with these flock managers gives access to expert shepherds with first-hand knowledge of the breed.
If anyone is interested in the genetics project, please contact us. You don’t have to be a director to be involved, although that would be great if that was your entryway into the board. We welcome your participation.
Plans for 2026
Presented by Amy Wheeler
- Explore Member Educational Publications
- Breed handbook (correct conformation, breed standards, lambing info, etc)
- We would like a member committee to put this together
- Host at least 1 member educational webinar and Annual Meeting.
- Annual business meeting in January via Google Meet
- At least 1 member educational webinar, perhaps in the Fall, maybe another in the Spring?
- Test Genetics Project re-entry process with University flocks.
- Recruit at least one new board member appointee. It is great to have a full board for more points of view.
- Director elections 2026
- Promote member involvement
- Monthly Water Trough Chats, periodic member newsletters, and news posted to website. Please come and hang out with us for Water Trough Chats. They’re super casual. You don’t have to dress up and look great, you can come right from your barn and hang out with us and talk about whatever happens to be going on for you in the barn/pasture.
- Members are more than welcome to write articles for our newsletters if they see something isn’t covered and they happen to have a lot of experience with it. The more the merrier! There’s lots of articles posted on the website. Browse through many of the older articles as well as the newer ones coming in from the newsletter.
Q & A Session
- TS asked if we can bring back the SCHSB phone for member questions.
- JW answered: We can take that under advisement. Our problem is, and I’m not against having a phone, but what our problem is that we don’t exactly have enough people that we can have somebody to man that phone. I know that it’s not a big burden that there’s not people calling all the time, but with the different time zones makes it difficult. I found what works with my own personal farm, is we have the website form that people can submit questions with their phone number, and then we call them back at a time that we can get a hold of them, and not like four in the morning if it’s somebody from across the coast. So that’s kind of why we decided to do that. We will be open to talking about continuing a phone, but we would need somebody that would be willing to man that phone. It would require a board decision at this point to bring it back.
- AF – I also wanted to say, I really enjoyed the symposium. I wish I could have come to this symposium but I really enjoyed it even on-line, being able to watch. That was just really educational and well worth watching. So thank you for all the work you did. I know that was probably a whole lot of work putting that together.
- AF – I like the Water Trough Chats. I have come to some of the chats when I have a chance and it’s just really nice to be able to talk to people that are knowledgeable, and especially, specifically, with this breed. Especially in the world of all the crazy Facebook armchair experts. And you see some wild things out there. So it’s good to talk to people that actually do this day to day, you KNOW that they’re doing it day to day, and you’re getting good advice. So I’ve really enjoyed coming to those.
- PM – I’ve enjoyed the water trough chats and I appreciate all of the help and you guys putting in you know your time to to be there and answer silly questions that I’ve had. I’ve been there, I don’t know, probably most of the meetings, and a lot of times, it feels like it’s often-times been just me and a couple others. You get a lot of well, you know, a lot of personal attention so that’s really been nice. I know that you all would like to grow it. So yeah, I would encourage everybody to try it out because I don’t think they have anything to lose and they potentially could find that it’s very interesting to them, and they get a lot of benefit. I feel, I think we have a lot of members that probably are in my league which is, you know, relatively new. So you know just hearing discussions you just pick up on different things that sometimes you didn’t even realize that you needed to be thinking about. It’s been very positive and I can’t, I mean I can’t say enough, how appreciative I am that you guys are doing it. I hope more people will give it a try.
- AF – This is just kind of a silly comment. I think we need more merch. I think we need hats. I really like my mug.
- JW – we have talked about doing that and that is a good idea. It’s good to hear that you guys are wanting more of that, so thank you.
- PM- I get the Stockman Grass Farmer, and I’m sure a lot of others do as well. I’ve noticed that we don’t have any sort of advertisement in there. I don’t know what it costs or whether it would generate any return but just thought if it wasn’t that expensive, it might be worth it. If y’all could consider just taking a shot at it for a period of time, seeing if you get in phone calls from it.
- CC – Well, that’s actually a really good idea. I hadn’t thought about that one. We’re in the Sheep Industry News as well as the Livestock Conservancy’s Breed Directory and Quarterly Newsletter. Those are the places that we advertise right now.
- PM – I don’t know how much trouble it would be to send emails out to people when you guys are having things to announce. Not everyone is on Facebook.
- CC – I’ve been thinking about maybe if we used SMS text messages.
- Positive feedback from members and directors present.
Meeting adjourned 9:18pm Eastern.
