Virginia Steinhaus DuBowy says she didn't set out to blaze any trails in the fall of 1973, when she enrolled in University of North Dakota's Fisheries and Wildlife Biology program, the only female in a class of males.
"Absolutely not, because I never thought about that," the Enderlin, N.D., native said. "When I got (to UND), people told me that usually women didn't last in that major, that they would switch to something else. But it never intimidated me, and the guys that were in the class with me, they never thought it was weird or strange that there was a woman in the class trying to get a degree in Fisheries and Wildlife Biology.
"That never even really crossed my mind. It's just that I wanted to do it so I stuck with it."
The first woman to graduate with a bachelor's degree from UND's Fisheries and Wildlife Biology program, the UND alumna today is chief of resources at Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area in Wyoming.
DuBowy, a 1977 UND graduate, is the guest speaker for this year's Glenn Allen Paur Memorial Seminar at UND. Her presentation, "Resource Management: What They Didn't Teach Me in College," is set for noon Friday, April 26, in Room 7 of the UND Education Building, 231 Centennial Drive.
The UND Chapter of The Wildlife Society and Biology Department host the seminar each year in memory of Glenn Allen Paur, a Pisek, N.D., native and UND biology student who died in a 1978 boating accident on Leech Lake while working on a research project just days after graduation.
