Staff appreciation week celebrates the year-round hard work and dedication of the ecology and evolutionary biology staff by intermingling fun and games into the workdays.

The week’s activites (March 17 – 21, 2015) began with a photo contest themed “holiday.” Amber Stadler captured first place with her photo of her one-year-old son, Cayden, crying on Santa’s lap. Second place went to Kendra Renner with her photos for “As Young as You Feel Day” featuring her grandma zipping down a slide and standing atop the slide with her then-toddler son, Trevor.  Elizabeth Walker took third place with her own unhappy (one hysterical) children, Jonah and Eloise, on Santa’s lap. There were over a dozen entertaining entries.

Staff played the weekly Tuesday Trivia email game. The trivia question for the week was “I have three adopted children, adopted three different ways. Who am I?” Cindy Carl correctly guessed that it was Kathy Brownston, EEB’s temporary executive secretary.

On Wednesday, staff played a trivia identification game, created by Jason Dobkowski and Gail Kuhnlein, featuring categories such as name the king, name the queen, name the jack, name the thing that rhymes with ace, as well as name the staff parent from a photo of their child and name the faculty member from childhood photos. Carl and Renner were the winning team.

The week culminated with the ever-popular Ad-mini Golf. This year’s theme was "national parks." Staff create golf holes in their work spaces and teams putt their way through the offices. Dobkowski and Rachel Cable won with low score, and Professor and Chair Diarmaid Ó Foighil and Mackenzie Caple had the most fun with their winning high score.  There were 22 holes in one. Prizes throughout the week are $5 gift cards to Barnes & Noble bookstore.

The winning golf hole was created by Sonja Botes (who made a guest appearance) with the National Mall. The Herbarium staff’s (Caple, Michael Ehnis, Matthew Foltz, Pat Rogers, Sama Winder) Everglades was a close second.

Enjoy the photos in this web album.

Image credits: Sonja Botes and Dale Austin.