Hot Springs Village Audubon has recently bestowed its prestigious President’s Award on Norma Wall, who has been an active member of the group since June 2015 – the same month she moved to the Village.
When asked what made her decide to join Audubon, she replied, “I saw a ‘prehistoric-looking bird’ in my back yard, which my brother told me was a pileated woodpecker…then more birds all over the place! Watching them compete for space on the feeder reminded me of my real estate days in Dallas!”
The only birds she had been interested in before moving to the Village were “red-tail hawks – we had a lot of those in Texas and they were always hunting in the same territory.”
Wall grew up in Oklahoma City and still has family there. She is a licensed real estate broker, and said, “I was trained in marketing and sales by a Fortune 500 company and did contract sales in Dallas for 15 years before going into real estate in 1993. I started my own real estate company in 2002 and took it virtual, without a traditional office environment, in 2010.
In 2015 she visited friends in Hot Springs Village – “it was love at first sight.”
She is a licensed broker in Arkansas and still broker/owner of her Texas company.
Wall leaped right into her commitment to Audubon by joining the board in 2017 as co-vice president for programs with Karen Geiger – “That was a great experience!” She added, “That’s also when I started working with Carolyn [Minson] to redo the website.”
Wall said basic information was covered on the old website, but it needed updating. “We needed to…move it to a more user-friendly service – one that would allow tons of pictures, a calendar, etc.,” she said. “National Audubon was helpful in making the decision to go with Squarespace.” Squarespace headquarters are in the same building in New York as Audubon, and Audubon staff said, “Squarespace was where the ‘cool people’ worked.”
Minson said, “We were so lucky that Norma was willing to redo our website and make it much more professional in both appearance and functioning.” She added that Wall has also been instrumental in teaching other webmasters how to use the program.
Wall became president of HSV Audubon in 2018 and served in that position through 2021.
Wall said one of the things she was most proud of during her years on the board was “the way all the board members worked together to improve the programs and processes over the years – including and especially during Covid, 2020 and a good chunk of 2021.”
Minson said, “We were…very fortunate that Norma was president during Covid. She knew how to get presentations online and managed to keep our chapter functioning.”
In addition to holding the club together and developing a first-class website, Wall is proud of developing a relationship with HSV Parks and Recreation, and getting POA proclamations in 2020 and 2022 to declare “Bird-friendly Plant Week” in Hot Springs Village, to coincide with Earth Day.
When asked how Audubon had impacted her life, Wall replied, “When I moved to HSV, I knew exactly two people who lived here, so getting involved with HSV Audubon was a fantastic platform to make new friends and get to know so many awesome people.”
The first President’s Award was presented in 2003 to Helen Pfeifer and has been given most years since then. The award has traditionally been given to past presidents, and a plaque hangs at the Coronado Center listing all recipients.
Minson is clearly a fan of this year’s nominee: “She [Wall] has helped our chapter function in a more businesslike manner…and has helped us change while still respecting our chapter’s traditions.”
Norma Wall accepting President’s Award from Janet Rowe.