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- July 17, 2007
Geology alumni trek back to Wyoming
- Marvin Taylor's experience is like many other alumni of the Department
of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences' Wyoming field camp.
"Several years ago on a family vacation, we came through the canyon
and we stopped by for a few hours," the 1970 geology alumnus from Omaha,
Neb., said. "I had a real enjoyable time when I was here, so I wanted
to show them where I spent a couple of summers."
Taylor's family vacation stop in Shell, Wyo., was the only time he had visited
the field camp until this past summer when he joined approximately 150 alumni,
friends, faculty and their families at the second annual alumni celebration
July 7-9. For most, it was also one of the few times they had revisited
the site of their summer excursion so many years before.
The reunion was highlighted by a couple of major announcements at a special
evening program.
- Carl Jacobson, professor and chair of the Department
of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, gave a "state-of-the-department"
address during which he informed the alumni that the field station would
be officially known a the "Carl F. Vondra Geology Field Station"
in honor of Carl Vondra, emeritus Distinguished Professor of geology and
long-time camp director .
"This is the perfect way to honor Carl for his committed service
as director of the camp and for his many other invaluable contributions
to the department," Jacobson said. "Nothing I can say can come
close to expressing the amount of influence Carl has had on the field
camp and its many students."
- Jacobson also announced that the initial fundraising
campaign for improvements to the camp have received more than $500,000
in contributions including a major gift from Tom ('68 & '71) and Evonne
Smith of Houston, Tex. The Smiths are founders and owners of Seismic Micro-Technology.
"This is an extremely generous gift," Jacobson said. "I
can't tell you how much this has advanced the project. Next year we hope
to have a new shower house and in a year or two have additional new facilities
at the field station."
The weekend saw several excursions from the field station site to outlaying
areas familiar with the alumni including fossil collecting at Hunt Mountain
in the Ordovician Bighorn Dolomite and the Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite.
The group also had an opportunity to view a fossilized skeleton of a 15-ton
dinosaur up close and personal during the reunion. The skeleton of a camarasaurus
was discovered less than a month prior to the reunion on a private ranch
near Shell in the Big Horn Mountains. The skeleton was still being excavated
and was more than 90 percent completed and highly articulated. It was also
arranged in death as it might have been found in life in a classic "death
pose."
"This is the best articulated dinosaur skeleton I have ever seen in
the field," Vondra said.
The discovery brought back memories for geology alumnus Bob Hrabak ('59)
of Leavenworth, Kan., and his daughter Pamela. While he was attending the
field camp in the late '50s, he made his own dinosaur discovery – a vertebrate.
"My children got to take it for show and tell every year at school,"
Bob Hrabak said. "It was definitely their favorite part of me being
at the camp."
That physical reminder of the field camp sustained Hrabak for years until
he came back for this year's reunion.
"I couldn't wait to see what it looked like again," he said. "I
had so much fun when I was out here."
According to Frank Reckendorf ('61 and '62) of Salem, Ore., while his experience
at the field camp was enjoyable, it was also beneficial to his career.
"I've been all over the world and Iowa State couldn't have selected
a better (geological) place to put this camp," he said. "The field
camp is all about seeing things firsthand. Everything in the textbook is
right here in the field."
Iowa State has operated the field station in north-central Wyoming each
summer for a course in geology field concepts and methods since 1957.
Carl Vondra
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