Cheryl Mellenthin waded knee-deep into the warm waves off the Gulf shore near Galveston, Texas, carrying precious cargo: a rehabilitated sea turtle she had named Carrigan, who was ready for release.
She was instructed to hold the turtle in the water briefly so it could acclimate before returning to its ocean home.
Mellenthin understood the instructions. Carrigan did not.
Since getting involved with Texas A&M University at Galveston’s Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research, Cheryl Mellenthin has attended several Kemp’s ridley releases. (Illustration by Patrick Rosche)
“The little flippers got going, and that turtle wanted to get in that water so bad!” she recalled with a chuckle. “I was trying to hold it in the water just for a little bit, but no, it was so strong-willed.” Carrigan shot out of Mellenthin’s hands and joyfully zipped away.
“There is nothing that compares to that,” she said, smiling.
Under the Spell of Sea Turtles
While Mellenthin had been involved in animal rescue and philanthropy for decades, she hadn’t had much interaction with aquatic life until Carrigan. In 2023, she got acquainted with Texas A&M University at Galveston’s Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research and started financially supporting its vision to construct a new Upper Texas Coast Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital and Educational Outreach Center to further its conservation work. The more she learned about sea turtles and interacted with the center’s researchers, the more she wanted to be part of it all. “When you look in those turtles’ eyes, you can see that they’re peaceful and intelligent. It’s just amazing,” she said.
Kemp’s ridley sea turtles are found primarily along the Gulf Coast region and are the world’s most critically endangered sea turtle species. (Top left and bottom right photos by Emily Caroline Sartin/Texas A&M Marketing and Communications; bottom left photo by Laura McKenzie/Texas A&M Marketing and Communications; top right photo courtesy Getty Images)
Over the next two years, the philanthropist continued to give toward the hospital’s construction through the Mark A. Chapman Foundation, named after her late husband. Her generosity culminated in May 2025 with a $4 million gift that brought her total giving to $8.55 million and satisfied the $23 million fundraising goal needed to break ground. In recognition, the facility will be named the Cheryl Mellenthin Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital and Educational Outreach Center.
The 16,000-square-foot complex will include a veterinary clinic, resident turtle tanks and two hospital wards with biological life support systems to treat injured and sick turtles. An educational outreach center will welcome visitors, allowing the public to view rescued marine life and learn about marine conservation while generating revenue to sustain research and conservation efforts.
“I hope visitors will fall under the spell of sea turtles just as I did,” Mellenthin enthused. “I’m eager to raise awareness of the wonders of marine life and the desperate need to protect it.”
Cheryl Mellenthin, the namesake of the new sea turtle hospital and outreach center, attends a sea turtle release in 2025. (Photo courtesy Texas A&M University at Galveston.)
The facility is expected to break ground in November 2026 and open 12 to 18 months later. While it will provide care for many sea turtles, it will have a special focus on one particular species.
“We are part of a statewide effort to bring the critically endangered Kemp’s ridley back to historic population levels,” said Dr. Christopher Marshall, director of the Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research and a Regents professor of marine biology at Texas A&M Galveston. The center has been involved in a statewide, 10-year nesting grant that collected Kemp’s ridley eggs from 87 miles of Texas shoreline to incubate, hatch and release in south Texas. “It’s a pretty extreme conservation measure, but it’s the most endangered sea turtle species in the world. Every egg really counts.”
Kemp’s ridley turtles are special, said Marshall. “They’re culturally significant as the state sea turtle of Texas. We only find them in Texas and Mexico, so they’re our turtle. They’re also an indicator of a healthy environment, because when you have sea turtles around, that means you have a healthy ocean.”
Animal Advocate
Though Mellenthin’s career was primarily in nursing, animal welfare has long been her passion. Today, she lives on a rescue ranch in Cat Spring, Texas, where she cares for more than 70 animals.
During her years as a nurse, she met her husband, Mark Chapman, and together they found success in the oil and gas industry. The pair began investing in 1987 and married 12 years later. After Chapman’s passing in 2014, Mellenthin began managing their portfolio of companies as well as the activities of two nonprofits. Her philanthropic giving focuses on academic scholarships as well as low-cost spay-and-neuter services through her organization PUPS (Preventing Unwanted Pets), which has provided more than 50,000 surgeries and diverted countless animals from shelters.
People, animals and the environment — we’re all inextricably connected.
One of her proudest moments was being awarded an honorary Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Kansas State University in 2022 for her efforts to improve the lives of rescue animals.
When she’s not busy managing the ranch, Mellenthin enjoys reading, crocheting and watching the sunrise at her home. While she has traveled the world from Africa to New Zealand to Europe, she said there is nowhere else she’d rather be than on her porch with a rescue pup on her lap and her menagerie of cows, horses, cats and bunnies nearby.
“I want to preserve all the animals on the planet, from the turtles in the sea to the dogs in the street,” she said. “People, animals and the environment — we’re all inextricably connected.”
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