The Year of the Okefenokee
Photo by Tom Wilson
Two great organizations – GNPA and the Georgia Sierra Club – are teaming up to spend a year celebrating the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. “The Year of the Okefenokee” project will feature field trips, seminars, photo contests, special GNPA e-newsletter articles and more.
The two photo contests will be centerpieces for this year-long event. The competitions will be open to the public and include an entry fee of $5 per submission. The images should be taken in the Okefenokee and can only include species found there. There is no time limit on when the photo was made, but it must be the exclusive work of the submitting photographer.
The first contest will accept submissions from May 1-31, 2022. This will be following the GNPA Expo at Jekyll Island on April 7-10, which will include several presentations as well as field trips to the Okefenokee. A pre-judging panel – consisting of Larry Winslett, Eric Bowles and Tom Wilson – will select the final images to be reviewed by judge Amy Gulick. Winners will be announced around July 1.
The second contest will take submissions from November 1-30, 2022. The same panel will prejudge the submissions, with Peter Essick serving as judge. The contest winners will be revealed in the second week of January 2023.
The contest will have cash prizes for each of four categories: Landscapes, Animals, Plants, and People in Nature. More information including specific rules, prize amounts, and submission guidelines, will be forthcoming.
The purpose of this year-long celebration is to increase public awareness of the Okefenokee. We hope all GNPA members will participate, and learn more about this amazing, world-class location within our state.
