My Five

After traveling to New Zealand and Australia to earn her master's degree in conservation biology, then working at various jobs in Missouri and Minnesota, Laci Prucinsky came home to the Omaha area to take a job as a naturalist with the Fontenelle Nature Association. The 28-year-old is in charge of educational programming, working with school-aged children. Her favorite things, of course, reflect her love of nature, but outside of work she also enjoys reading, doing crossword and jigsaw puzzles and spending time at farmers markets.

1. Western fox snake. This snake was caught by a forest ranger in 1998, and is an “absolute sweetheart.”

Obviously snakes don't bother her, right? “It took awhile to get used to it. Now most snakes don't (bother me). But I'm not really interested in bothering with venomous snakes at all.”

2. A Timbuktu bag. This was a splurge — she had the messenger bag custom made before going overseas. It's big enough to hold a change of clothes, a pair of shoes, lunch, all of her notebooks and all the stuff she'd normally carry in a purse. “It's been beat to death,” she said.

3. A necklace containing a basalt rock. Called a Touchstone, the necklace is made by a New Zealand company. The stones, smooth from being tumbled in the ocean, are selected by artists from a beach called Birdling's Flat.

“It's very tactile. I tend to touch it a lot.”

4. A piece of lichen (Xanthoria elegans) that went up on a space shuttle. Her interest in lichens started during a required course for her undergraduate degree, and she accumulated a couple of collections while she was overseas. This lichen is from a collection her former professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha donated to Fontenelle Forest.

5. A St. Christopher medal. Originally given by her mom to her dad when they were married, Prucinsky's dad gave it to her when she started traveling in 2007. There's an inscription on the back, but all that remains legible is her mom's name.

— Susan White, photos by Chris Machian