In 2024, Sul Ross hosted its inaugural Water in the Desert Conference, inviting experts, legislators, and stakeholders to share their stories, work, and research on how to preserve a desert’s most precious resource: water.

Two years later, the second Water in the Desert Conference (February 11-13) descended on the Sul Ross campus, hosting water and conservation experts from across the state, and filling the Espino Conference Center and the Marshall Auditorium with folks who have a vested interest in how to preserve water in West Texas.

Out of the first conference, a mechanism was born to promote science, legislation, and solutions to the challenges faced by water in all its forms here in West Texas. The Meadows Research Institute for West Texas Water was created with the help of philanthropy from the Meadows Foundation and is housed at Sul Ross State Uni- versity under the direction of the Interim Director and Associate Director of Stewardship Service at the Borderlands Research Institute, Billy Tarrant. Tarrant is joined by lead scientist and long-time Sul Ross professor of geology, Dr. Kevin Urbanczyk, along with Dr. Jesse Kelch and Dr. Kelbi De-Laune.