Phase I – Fifty-one USGS Time and Terrain Geologic Maps of the US are on the walls of local schools thanks to the efforts and donations from many members of our society. The goal of getting 100 of them placed by the end of this school year is on track.

Phase II – Safari it South Texas has started with donations of extinct Pleistocene mammal bones (collected by Ronnie Thomas TAMUK and me in December) to Ella Barnes Elementary and to Kostoryz Elementary during Public School Week March 5th to March 9th. A flyer about the movie Ice Age has been prepared that indicates that the animals depicted in that movie lived in south Texas and our fossil assemblages here are similar to those from the La Brea tar pits in California.

We expect a packed house—probably in the Crystal room again—for Frank Cornish and his Speaks Field Discovery at our April 18th luncheon—get your reservations in early to get a seat to see this great Wilcox discovery in Lavaca County—how did Frank get there before you? Come see how this huge field was discovered—what were the clues Frank saw?

In November 1989, Burt Harkins, President of Harkins & Company, decided to sell his exploration company. But this would leave many exploration people and exploration projects and exploration offices and exploration leases up in the air. Bill Maxwell, Exploration VP of Harkins & Company, contacted local geologists Bill Miller and Dan Pedrotti. They were willing to buy the exploration company from Burt and start a new company along with JM Smith, founder and owner of Genesis. We changed the signs on the office door from Harkins & Company to Suemuar Exploration on January 1, 1990. My continuing saga of 35 years in the oil business continues in this bulletin with Lessons Learned.

Owen Hopkins
3/10/07