By Lisa Ramie

I sat down with Annie Sexton to chat about her father Dr. Chuck Sexton, one of our 2026 Victor Emanuel Conservation Award honorees. He and Lisa O’Donnell will be celebrated by Annie and many others on October 3, 2026.

So the first question’s very funny for you being his daughter, but how did you get to know Chuck?

Man, I’ve known Chuck’s as long as I can remember, really. He’s my dad.

Why do you think he deserves this recognition?

I don’t know anyone who’s quite as dedicated as he is to conservation and to caring for habitats. He likes to get into the nitty-gritty of things, and he definitely passed that on to me. It’s definitely one of the things I like most about him.

Any words come to mind when you think about your dad?

Curious is definitely one of them. Definitely funny. He’s very dedicated. His ability to focus on something so intensely is unparalleled. He will just deep-dive into something like nobody’s business, and I think that is what makes him such a good scientist. I mean, the guy writes scientific papers for fun. He’s also a goofball, so there’s that.

Do you remember being out in nature with him a lot as a kid?

Oh yeah, all the time. Most of my childhood was being outdoors.

I didn’t really know how to birdwatch. I had these dinky little binoculars that, you know, I couldn’t see much, but they did the job. I was a kid; I was going to break them anyway.

Most of my core childhood memories are just being outside and mucking around in nature, and drawing nature because I would always draw with him.

Any stories come to mind in particular?

So I’m an artist, and he was the one to instill my love of illustration because for the longest time, to document species that he came across, he would draw them. And he is very good at art.

I don’t know if they still do Take Your Kid to Work Day, but every time that came around I would hang out with my dad, typically just in the office. Every single time I would draw a new picture of a Golden-cheeked Warbler. I know there’s a collection somewhere of all of my Golden-cheeked Warblers over the years. And you could see me getting better every single year and that was really, really cool. That’s just such a strong memory of drawing nature with my dad.