The excerpt below is taken from the book As We Remember It by George W. Jeffers, NABT’s First Vice President and President (1941) and Jerry P. Lightner, the first Executive Director.
The First Annual Association Meeting in Richmond, Virginia, was part of the AAAS meeting. The Board met on 27 December 1938, and the membership meetings were on 28 December. NABT had a joint dinner with The Committee on Biological Science Teaching of the Union of American Biological Societies. During the Board meeting, 12 local biology teacher organizations petitioned the NABT Board for affiliation. These early affiliates included the Kansas Association of Biology Teachers and the New York Association of Biology Teachers, which are still active today (Jeffers & Lightner, 2001).
This new organization’s goal was to enroll every biology teacher in the United States. At the time, there were 20,000 biology teachers. Dues were set at $1.00...