My name is Jessica Dorsey and I am from the town of Claude, Texas. I am currently transferring from the University of Texas at Austin to Texas Tech University in Lubbock this fall to complete my Bachelor’s in Political Science and minor in Natural Resource Conservation. Spending a year in the city that likes to “keep is weird” has been a learning experience to say the least, but one thing I can say for certain is that Austin has given me a deep appreciation for my homeland, the Texas Panhandle. Growing up on a half section of ranch land on the rim of the Palo Duro Canyon, the topic of water has always on my families minds. Rain or Drought that windmill pumping water from the aquifer was a necessity to our survival. One day when I was sitting in a lecture room of a couple hundred people at UT my Professor asked if anyone “migrated from the Panhandle,” of course I was the only one. He had me stand and explain to my fellow students what a playa lake and an aquifer was. To my shock those two things which I had grown up knowing and respecting were foreign concepts to those who sat around me. In that moment I had a revelation, water. Instilling and understanding the importance of water conservation and our Ogallala Aquifer, through water policy, is my new found passion. The Panhandle is not only just my address it is the place that made me and this is my way of giving back to it.
