A new grant award that will benefit one of the caves on the Godwin Ranch Preserve is credited in large part to the efforts of a former Texas Cave Management Association director. The Cave Conservancy Foundation has awarded TCMA a $5,950 grant for a new gate at Temples of Thor Cave.
The award came on April 17, the day after Ron Ralph died. Ron, who was longtime TCMA Budget Committee chairperson, had worked with Preserve Manager Eléonore Le Corvaisier to secure the grant.
“He died a day after we were awarded the grant,” Eléonore said. “Without him, the process would have taken much longer, and we may not have secured the grant at all.”
The old gate at Temples of Thor, installed in the early 1990s, has badly rusted hinges and is not bat-friendly, which prevents adequate flow of nutrients into the cave.
The new grant will enable TCMA to remove the current gate and its concrete shoring in order to install a cupola-style, bat-friendly gate. This is particularly important at a time when our local bat populations have been severely affected by encroaching development and White Nose Syndrome.
“Ron had suggested that I look at the CCF Major Grants criteria and the NSS Conservancy grants,” Eléonore said. “He also sent me a trove of documents from the Lip and Wells Fargo/NFWF grants that he wrote to install a gate on Ezell’s Cave Preserve in 2014. Once I drafted the proposal, he was one of the reviewers and made helpful suggestions.
“Ron also supported the writing process simply by asking for regular updates to be shared at our meetings,” she said.
Eléonore said Ron, a career archeologist, participated in trash cleanup efforts at Godwin Ranch as recently as March. “I remember he didn’t want me to pick up any of the tiny pieces already embedded in the soil,” she recalled. “He said, ‘That’s archaeology for future people to find.’”
