Caesar Kleberg Fellowship Endowment

The Caesar Kleberg Fellowship in Wildlife Conservation Endowment at Texas Tech University was established in 1988 to support outstanding graduate students who have a strong interest and background in Wildlife Ecology and Management. The endowment was funded by the Caesar Kleberg Foundation for Wildlife Conservation. The Foundation was established from the estate of Caesar Kleberg and it was his wish that these funds be used for the study of wildlife populations and their habitat in Texas. Mr. Kleberg was dedicated to promoting sound management of Texas wildlife populations which was exemplified by his service on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission.
Caesar Kleberg, rancher and wildlife promoter, son of Mathilda (Eckhart) and Rudolph Kleberg, was born on September 20, 1873, at Cuero, Texas. Rudolph Kleberg served in Congress from 1897 to 1903. Upon graduation from the Cuero schools and after attending St. Edwards University in Austin, "Mr. Caesar" went to Washington, D. C., where he was employed as his father's congressional secretary. He moved to the King Ranch in 1900 to begin work for Henrietta King and was chief assistant to his uncle, Robert J. Kleberg. Caesar first lived and worked on the Santa Gertrudis Division, but he made his mark during his thirty-year tenure as foreman of Norias, forty miles south of Kingsville.
Mr. Kleberg oversaw the restoration of the white-tailed deer, the turkey, and bobwhite quail to rangeland almost completely denuded of them. In 1924 he released Nilgai antelope from southern Asia on the Texas range, the first such release in the western hemisphere. The Nilgai have multiplied to such numbers that they are commercially harvested at Norias as a gourmet wild game meat. Kleberg, who never married, died at the Santa Gertrudis Division of the King Ranch on April 14, 1946. In his will he established the Caesar Kleberg Foundation for Wildlife Conservation, endowing a fund to support wildlife research and conservation around the world.
Specific research topics of interest include: big game, upland game, and ecology and management of waterfowl, as well as the management of game habitat.

Criteria for award of the fellowship supported by this endowment are that the graduate student shall have a minimum GPA of 3.25 at the M. S. level or 3.80 at the Ph.D. level; a combined verbal plus quantitative score of at least 1100 on the Graduate Record Exam and an undergraduate degree in wildlife management or closely related field. This fellowship endowment is particularly unique in that it not only provides funds for the fellowship but also provides funds to support the research activities related to the student's thesis or dissertation.