Our program this month will be presented by recent Paleontological Society Strimple Award winner and Dry Dredgers own Dan Cooper. His program is entitled: APEX Stegosaurus: The saving of one of the most remarkable dinosaurs ever excavated and mounted. Join us for an account of the discovery, excavation, preparation, and auction of "Apex" the Stegosaurus, one of the largest specimens of this plated Jurassic dinosaur ever found. Currently on loan to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, Apex made the headlines last year due to its record-setting auction at Sotheby's. We are fortunate to have a true insider available to give us a peak behind the scenes.
Dan Cooper is a long-time Dry Dredger who has been widely involved in our local paleontology community. He is best known for collecting and preparing trilobites, and is personally responsible for unearthing hundreds if not thousands of exceptional specimens. These range from Flexicalymene, Isotelus, and other familiar "bugs" out of our local Cincinnatian strata, all the way to exotic species from New York, Oklahoma, Utah, and other far-flung localities. Fossil hunting runs in his family, with his son Ben Cooper now running the Trilobites of America prep lab in Kentucky and his son Jason Cooper responsible for the discovery of Apex, among other notable finds.
TIME: 8 pm
DATE: Friday, May 23,
2025
PLACE:
Room 201 Braunstein Hall
University of Cincinnati Clifton Campus
SIMULCAST: via Zoom
- Link sent no later than May 20.
Here are some directions to our meeting room (Updated)
Attendance at UC was a bit lower at our April meeting with 14 on Zoom and 21 in-person at UC. This may have been caused by the change in the meeting date as we scheduled around Geofair.
Yes, we realize the meeting and field trip fall on the Memorial Day weekend. We
experimented with changing the
meeting date in the past and found out that
meeting nor field trip attendance changed. Consequently, we opted to maintain
our
traditional 4th Friday arrangements,
Geofair ended up as a financial success but to a diminished degree from previous years. Our attendance was lower than typical perhaps related to our change in venue. I believe that some may have thought the new location was hard to get to when in reality, it is a 15 minute drive from I-75 with only one turn needed. We also experienced a number of one-time expenses necessary with the new venue, specifically, the purchase of multiple electrical cords and walkover cord protectors. Security costs were also up with a 50% increase in hourly rate for security coupled with a requirement for twice the staffing - this will be addressed for next year’s show. Our volunteer turnout was also lower than usual causing a lot of scrambling and extra work for those who did come to help. We expect next year’s show to be back on track with past shows since we learned a lot and won’t have these major expenses again.
Note: The next meeting date after the May meeting will be September 26th.
Masks will be considered as optional at Dry Dredgers meetings at UC. However, if you have a cold, other respiratory symptoms or are coughing or sneezing, you will still need to wear a mask to protect others. If you are ill, we suggest that you stay home and watch on Zoom. Some of our members who attend these meetings are in high risk groups (including me) so please be courteous and sensitive to their situation. Vaccination is also highly recommended. We have a limited number of free masks at the front of the room if you need one.
The Beginners Class will be conducted from 7:15 PM to 8:00 PM on May 23rd. It will be an outside tour of the new UC fossil yard display. Meet by the back entrance of the Geology-Physics building along the walkway leading to the breezeway at the entrance to the Geology-Physics Building (opposite the new Clifton Court Hall). If it is raining plan B: meet inside before the general meeting in room 300 in Braunstein Hall on the UC campus. That's one floor up from the main meeting. Dr. Brett will review the fine points of Kyle Hartshorn’s lovely paintings of Ohio through time and a few fossil items of interest. Call Greg Courtney at 513-515-8862 to confirm this class will proceed. I will inform folks with any updates.
Saturday, May 24th 10:00 am Hueston Woods
6301 Park Office Rd, College
Corner, OH 45003
Meet at the Archery Range
* I-275 to Exit 33/US 27
* Head North on US 27 for 20 miles into downtown
Oxford/Miami University
* Left onto E High Street for 0.2 miles
* Right
onto Tallawanda Road – travel 0.4 miles
* Left onto E Sycamore Street –
travel 0.6 miles
* Right onto Brown Road – travel 3.0 miles
* Right onto
Park Office Road – travel 0.8 miles
Directions to the site are published in the full PDF version of the Bulletin
that is emailed to dues-paying members.
Would you like to be a member?
Please do. Here are the instructions for mailing in your dues.
http://www.drydredgers.org/register.htm.
More interesting and informative articles, along with color illustrations is available in the full E-Bulletin that was emailed to dues-paying members.
The Dry Dredgers and individual contributors reserve the
rights to all information, images, and content presented here. Permission to
reproduce in any fashion, must be requested in writing to admin@drydredgers.org
.
www.drydredgers.org is designed and maintained by Bill Heimbrock.