A lot of the subcontractors will undercut you, cheat you out of your money if they can.
We reinvented ourselves back in 1994, when we got money for a new herbarium that was open to the public. Most herbariums are impossible to get into. We have access for gardeners and everyone else. Other ones, you need credentials.
Certain plant parts are associated with crime, drugs or poison. We encourage the public to go to the [Delaware] Cooperative Extension first. The stuff they can't identify, they send to us. We do the hard things.
This place is pretty close to a swamp, especially when the mosquitoes and flies get going. I came to town to try to help get things back to normal and make a few bucks. But this has been hard.
We have a very unique fruit cone and seed collection that we're trying to increase. We do consulting work for commercial companies, such as spice companies, when they can't identify in-house. Occasionally there are some odd seeds.
As far as total expectations, we know that we have work to do and we want to continue to improve. Magnet schools are just a vehicle that we are using to improve education in Texarkana. So, until education improves, then our expectations are not met.
One of the things that I know that we didn't do a good job of is how can they (specialty teachers) help to bring this whole process of magnet schools along through professional development specifically for them. We didn't do that last year.
The stuff comes in as a craft item so it's never inspected. We're working on a software key that the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service [a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture] can identify when it comes through.
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