• Wyoming reminiscing

  Alumni of the Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences spent three days in early July returning to their summer field camp roots at the department's permanent field station in Wyoming.

• Eight weeks in the middle of nowhere.
  
  Long days out in the arid Wyoming landscape.
  
  Far from family and friends.
  
  For the past 45 years, majors in Iowa State University's Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences have spent a good portion of a summer at the department's permanent field station in Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains.
  And despite the obvious hardships (little connection with the outside world or outdoor toilets), it's an experience many relish.
  
  "It was the best college course I ever took," said Jim Zalesky, who participated in the camp in the 1970s. "It was the summer of my life."
  
  Zalesky and other 150 alumni of the field station and their families came back to Wyoming in early July for three-days of story telling and reminiscing. The reunion also featured several excursions to nearby geological landmarks, many of which the alumni had covered in years past.
  
  During their undergraduate years, the coursework featured short one- or two-day projects. Students learn to recognize and evaluate various geologic phenomena and problems and learn geologic reasoning on daily excursions to nearby geological sites.
  
  Standard field techniques, ranging from note taking to photogeologic analysis, are introduced along with the latest methods of acquiring and recording field data.
  
  In addition to the excursions and getting acquainted with old friends, the alumni returned to honor Carl Vondra, Distinguished Professor of geology and the longtime director of the camp. The alumni recognized Vondra's contributions to the field camp (he has directed it for almost 35 years) by unofficially naming the field camp in his honor.
  
  "Nothing I can say can come close to expressing the amount of influence Carl has had on the field camp and on to many of you," said Carl Jacobson, professor and chair of the Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences. "The field camp and Carl Vondra's leadership has really made an enormous impression on all of us."
  
  Vondra has retired from teaching, but has continued his duties as the director of the field camp.
  
  "You wouldn't know that he has retired," Jacobson said. "He still teaches classes, conducts his research and of course directs this field camp - all on a volunteer basis."
  
  Vondra acknowledged his fellow faculty members in the department and all of the students who have attended the field camp for the past 40 years.
  
  "All of you have had a big part in making this field camp what it is," he said. "All of you contributed to what I am and I owe you the world."

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September 9-22, 2002