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In Fall 2001, the Department of Geography and Geology joined the Earth and Space Science Education Alliance (ESSEA), a national initiative to
provide professional development opportunities to teachers in Earth System Science. The Department’s involvement in this initiative was made possible by a 3-year grant to geologist Dr Fred Siewers from the Institute for Global
Environmental Strategies and NASA’s Center for Educational Technology. Joining Dr. Siewers on the grant is Dr Joan Whitworth, a science education specialist at Morehead State University, Kentucky. The goal of the grant is
to provide Kentucky teachers with an understanding of Earth System Science concepts and ability to teach those concepts via NASA-created educational materials, with new approaches to classroom instruction. All courses are
team taught by Drs Siewers and Wentworth.
Thus far, Drs Siewers and Wentworth have successfully offered one ESSEA course to Kentucky middle grades teachers. In Fall 2002, they will be team-teaching an ESSEA
course for K-4 teachers. In Spring 2003, the team will be offering an ESSEA course for pre- and in-service high school teachers and any persons interested in Earth System Science and the brave new world of on-line education.
The course will be entitled Geology 495, 495G - Earth System Science for Teachers - and it will be offered through both Western Kentucky University and the Kentucky Virtual University (http://www.kyvu.org/).
All persons completing the course will receive 3 hours of undergraduate, graduate, or continuing education credit from Western. Anyone interested should contact Dr Siewers for more information (fred.siewers@wku.edu;
270-745-5988). To learn more about the courses, see the ESSEA web site at http://www.cet.edu/essea/.
The CCKS had a very successful first year in the newly renovated offices and new dye tracer laboratory. Full-time Center employees included: Scott Roach, Lab Manager; Leigh Ann Croft, Research Hydrogeologist and Education Coordinator; and Rita Collins, Administrative Assistant.
The laboratory, geophysical investigations, and other research activities of the CCKS have provided important educational opportunities for the following undergraduate students who have been employed by the CCKS: Chris Ray, Alison Parker, Joe Howard, Ron Taylor, Rolland Moore, Matt Glass, Mike Peveler, Clay Brunton, Jeff Tibbs, David Wyatt, and Ben Hutchins. In addition, the Center has supported a
graduate assistantship for Jeremy Richardson and has employed for individual projects the following graduate students: Joseph Islas, Pat Kambesis, Phani Kalabagunta, and Madhusudham Rayapasti. Most of these students have had the opportunity to rotate their time between laboratory work on dye-trace analysis and field work involving dye traces, microgravity, electrical resistivity, report preparation, and other karst-related research projects. Many of these
students have been listed as co-authors on professional reports and papers presented at professional meetings. Their involvement in real world applied research has provided a great educational opportunity and will assist them in obtaining employment upon graduation. They have been involved in all aspects of Center activities, including the numerous public service activities. Therefore, they have been involved in all aspects of the University’s mission of education, research and public service.
The great increase in applied research grants and fee-for-service contracts has fulfilled the goals of the Applied Research and Technology Program of Distinction as well as those of the Department and the University. The Center has assisted private and government agencies in New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, California, and Kentucky, as well as Israel, Canada, Ireland and Croatia.
In addition, the CCKS has continued its important educational activities, such as the Karst Field Studies Program and our work with Lost River Cave. The following undergraduate students have been paid through the CCKS to serve as tour guides at Lost River: Donna DeRonde, Kristi Hancock, Amy Nichter, Steven O’Nan, Amanda Owens, Nichole Phillip, Leslie Ann Smith, Chris Hall, and Ryan Rennick. These students, while earning money to support their education, have learned a great deal about karst hydrogeology, and they have helped to educate the public as tour guides for the Lost River Cave boat tour. Lost River Cave expects to exceed 45,000 visitors this year. This important natural and historic resource could not have been saved without the hard work of many of our alumni, who helped to build trails, install lighting, and build the dam that permitted the boat tour. Your contribution will provide enjoyment and karst education to many future generations. The Center and the University greatly appreciates your contribution!
This year the Center contributed to the community of Bowling Green by accepting a grant from the Inter-modal Transportation Authority to conduct an investigation of the hydrogeology in the vicinity of the proposed Kentucky Trimodal Transpark. The Center has submitted numerous proposals for grants and contracts and has been successful in obtaining a total of 69 for applied karst hydrology research. The largest was $145,000 for laboratory and other assistance to the IT Corp (Shaw Group) for dye traces at Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville, Alabama. In addition, Center personnel have authored 11 articles and professional reports and presented 8 papers at professional meetings. All but one of these included graduate and/or undergraduate students as co-authors.
The need for Bowling Green to work on its storm water runoff management was evidenced in February 2002 when a sinkhole collapse occurred under the newly constructed Dishman Lane during rush hour traffic. Four cars were involved but no injuries. This collapse, the largest in Kentucky’s history, was approximately 200 feet in diameter, collapsing into State Trooper Cave. Nick and alumnus James Webster and other graduate students had worked on this project in 1987-88. They identified with microgravity a large collapse cave room and recommended that it be avoided in the road’s construction. At this time, the Center also mapped State Trooper Cave and identifying its exact location with a cave radio transmission on an air photograph. Eleven years later when the highway was constructed, the identified collapse cave room was avoided. Unfortunately, due to financial constraints, a portion of the road was rerouted over an area not investigated by the Center’s microgravity, although it had been identified on the CCKS map as being a collapsed cave room (Mudderhorn Chamber) with cave air rising to the surface from crevices in the ground. Although our research indicated that a portion of the Mudderhorn Chamber had already collapsed to the surface, the collapse appears to have included both the previously broken rock and a portion of the intact cave roof.
Since many roads in Bowling Green are built over caves, no one could have predicted with certainty that this location would actually collapse. However, once the road was built, storm water runoff directed into this area of underground collapse appears to have been a major contributor to the collapse of the Mudderhorn Chamber under Dishman Lane. This problem of storm water management is being addressed by the City of Bowling Green at this time. Fuller, Mossbarger, Scott and May Engineers, Inc., and the CCKS have teamed to work on a Storm Water Master Plan for the City of Bowling Green to meet the new USEPA Phase II requirements.
Immediately after the collapse, the City of Bowling Green requested the CCKS to investigate the collapse and its potential for expansion. Leigh Ann Croft, staff hydrogeologist, and several graduate and undergraduate research assistants worked on the project performing microgravity and using cave radio transmission to
map an outline of State Trooper Cave on the ground’s surface. Nick’s Hydrogeology Class took on the research as a class project. Graduate students Pat Kambesis and Rhonda Pfaff, and undergraduate Rolland Moore put in many hours of work. The Traverse 2 Dishman Lane Collapse diagram shows a large low-gravity anomaly over State Trooper Cave at a location where it had not collapsed and demonstrates the CCKS ability to locate caves from the ground surface. The report submitted to Bowling Green, including profile views of the collapse, was used to bid the job for remediation.
The broken rock and soil is now being excavated to bedrock and then being repaired by stacking and compacting rock from solid bedrock to the ground surface. A pipe will be installed to ensure that the State Trooper Cave stream will continue to flow, and the highway will be constructed over the repaired sinkhole. This collapse was featured in a short article in GeoTimes Magazine. Graduate student Pat Kambesis is assisting the Center in the preparation of an article to be presented to a professional journal.
The Center completed the 23rd year of its Karst Field Studies Program with five courses taught: 1) Management of Karst Aquifers, taught in Texas by Dr. George Veni; 2) Karst Geomorphology, taught at Mammoth Cave National Park (MCNP) by Dr. Darryl Granger and Mr. Joe Meiman; 3) Karst Hydrology, taught by Dr. William White and Dr. Nicholas Crawford at MCNP; 4) Speleology, taught by Mr. Roger Brucker at MCNP; and 5) Cave Surveying and Cartography, taught by Ms. Patricia Kambesis and Dr. Nicholas Crawford at MCNP. The Center is presently working with Mammoth Cave National Park and the WKU Center for Biodiversity on an expansion of our course offerings and other educational and research activities at Mammoth Cave National Park.
NOTE to past CCKS employees, staff and alumni: The Center’s accomplishments and national prestige developed over the past 24 years are a direct result of the hard work and dedication of its undergraduate and graduate research assistants, employees, professors, and adjunct professors. Nick hopes that these individuals recognize their important contribution, not only to Western Kentucky University, but to the development of new karst research technologies, to karst environmental problems solved through their applied research, and to karst education that will influence generations to come. “Progress” does not appear overnight…it is a growth process of which all of you are a part.
In particular, Nick would like to recognize the hard work and dedication performed this year by Leigh Ann Croft, Research Hydrogeologist and Education Coordinator, and Scott Roach, Laboratory Manager who are propelling the Center to a new level of national prominence in education and scientific research.
 The Dishman Lane Collapse in early 2002 |
 Chart Detailing Gravity versus Elevation |
KATIE ALGEO enjoyed a productive first year on the faculty of the Geography & Geology Department at Western. In addition to teaching introductory classes in Human Geography, she taught Scope & Methods in Geography and Introduction to Geographic Information Systems, the latter course now part of the Department’s new GIS certificate program. Dr. Algeo reports that the new GIS lab in the Industrial Education building (across the street from EST) is an outstanding educational facility and invites alumni to take a look at it next time they are on campus.
As a researcher, Dr. Algeo has “gone native” quickly. Her major project this year looked at changes in burley tobacco marketing practices that have accompanied the rise of contract farming and the implications of changes in the spatial distribution of auction warehouses for tobacco farmers. She gave presentations on this topic at two conferences -a rural development conference at East Carolina University focusing on tobacco-dependent communities and at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Los Angeles. After several hiking excursions in Mammoth Cave National Park, Dr. Algeo has become fascinated with the cultural history of that region, especially the links between cave tourism, economic development, and landscape change. In June she traveled to San Marino, California, to peruse the collection of the Huntington Library, which owns a large volume of materials related to Mammoth Cave dating to the early nineteenth century.
As a director of the Contemporary Agriculture and Rural Landuse specialty group of the Association of American Geographers, Dr. Algeo helped shepherd that group through its merger with the Rural Development specialty group this spring. She maintains the web site for the resulting Rural Geography specialty group (http://www.wku.edu/~katie.algeo/rgsg/rgsg.htm), and invites everyone to visit the site. Community service activities found Dr. Algeo clambering among rafters and learning how to roof a house as she helped the Allen County chapter of Habitat for Humanity with its current project. Finally, Dr. Algeo found time to lie on a beach along the Mayan Riviera south of Cancun, as well as explore ancient pyramids, henequen plantations, and the colonial city of Mérida in the Yucatán peninsula.
JIM BINGHAM writes that “it has been an eventful year in many ways--the first year with Dr. Keeling as department head, 9/11, and my first stay in the hospital. David is doing a good job leading the department as we continue to wage the WAR ON GEOGRAPHIC IGNORANCE. I do not know if we will win or not, but if we lose it will be after one hell of a BATTLE. Surely, with 9/11 and other world-scale events of the past several years, it should be rather obvious that a lack of geographic knowledge can lead to serious problems. I look forward to an additional 3-4 years at WKU with David in charge of the ship.
“In December, I spent my first days ever in the hospital as a result of congestive heart failure. Luckily, the Doc determined that the problem could be handled with medicine and I did not have to be cut on. I am doing OK now and everything seems to be under control. I have to follow a strict diet and as some of you would probably guess, I do not get to eat the things that I would really like to eat.
“My research interests continue to focus on small town and rural Kentucky. With the 2000 Census material now coming available, I plan to examine from a spatial perspective a number of demographic and economic problems. I am especially interested in the role that transfer payments play as sources of income for rural areas and small towns in the Commonwealth.
“I continue to grow and hybridize irises as a hobby and have been elevated to the status of Master Judge by the American Iris Society for those of you who may be interested to know. It seems that the first question a lot of past students will ask when I see them will be about irises.
If you were in the Department during the 60s and 70s and know the whereabouts of your fellow majors and minors at that time, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE let us know about them. Provide as much information as you can about them and also tell us about you. We want to expand and improve our alumni files.
I would like to hear from all graduates during my tenure at WKU personally. Feel free to call, snail-mail, or e-mail me james.bingham@wku.edu here at WKU.
I hope your year has been as good as mine, and come visit our tent during homecoming this year. We will have some food and drink and I promise the BS will be deep! TM, KEEP ON ROLLING WITH THE FLOW. BEST WISHES,
TENN, TUCK, AND JIM BINGHAM
GLEN CONNER
retired in July 2000 but remains active in research and other professional and scholarly activities. In August 2001, he attended the American Association of State Climatologists in Omaha, NE. On 5 October 2001, he attended the National Climatic Data Center’s 50th Anniversary celebration in Asheville, NC. He was one of just a few ex-State Climatologists to attend this meeting. On 9 November 2001, he attended the joint meeting of the Kentucky Academy of Science and the Tennessee Academy of Science in Murfreesboro TN. He presented a paper “Dr. Samuel D. Martin, Physician and Meteorologist, 1865-1875.”
In January 2002, he attended the 82nd annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society held in Orlando, Florida. Glen also attended the AMS Chapters meeting. In March 2002, he attended the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers held in Los Angeles, CA, and presented a paper on “Pre-1896 Climate Observations In The United States.”
In May 2002, Glen attended the 13th Applied Climatology Conference held in Portland, OR, and sponsored by the American Meteorological Society. He presented a paper on “Data Mining: Gold Or Pyrite?” He also was the Chair of two sessions on drought that saw the presentation of fourteen papers on this important topic of research. Also in May 2002, he attended one day of the Agriculture and Forest Climatology Conference held in Norfolk VA.
Glen will be teaching Aviation Meteorology this fall.
NICK CRAWFORD was involved during the past year in a variety of education, research and public service activities as Director of the CCKS. One of the Center’s most interesting requests for assistance occurred after 9-11. Nick was contacted by both NASA and FEMA about the possibility of using the Center’s microgravity techniques for locating voids where people might still be alive beneath the World Trade Center rubble. Nick and alumnus Michael Lewis had previously used microgravity to identify the extent of a sinkhole collapse under NASA’s building that holds the supercomputer that runs the Space Shuttle located at Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama. Nick packed his suitcase and loaded his suburban and was on call for about a month as NASA tried to get permission from the New York City Fire Department for him to perform the work. The site was so rugged that the only way to take measurements would have been to be lowered in a basket by crane to take each measurement. The NYFD understandably did not wish to interrupt its concentrated efforts to locate survivors in order to try an experimental application of microgravity. Nick was later contacted again by NASA and FEMA and asked to be “on call” for any possible disaster at the Winter Olympics in Utah.
This experience has resulted in Nick applying for and receiving a $250,000 grant ($75,000 per year for 3 years) from the Kentucky Science and Technology Center to develop a remotely controlled vehicle to permit microgravity and other geophysical techniques to be used to locate subsurface voids for search and rescue and military applications.
In August 2001, Nick used microgravity for Epic Engineering, Inc., to assist in the location of 20,000 gallons of gasoline that had leaked into the Floridan aquifer at Albany, Georgia. He also completed a dye trace study for the US Corps of Engineers to identify the source of a large leak (15,000 cfs) below the Jim Woodruff Dam at Lake Seminole, Florida. This involved injecting dye into holes in the bottom of the lake located about 1,700
feet upstream from the dam and tracing them through the confined Floridan aquifer to the large boil in the Apalachicola River about 2,000 feet downstream from the dam.
In December 2001, the CCKS received a grant from the Croatian government to investigate a sinkhole approximately 300 feet in diameter filled with 150 feet of toxic waste near Rijeka on the Adriatic coast. After an eight day visit to the site in Croatia, Nick and Stuart Edwards, Consulting Engineer, prepared a report based on the HELP model and recommended future research. Hopefully the Center will be involved in performing dye traces in Croatia at this site and an additional landfill site in the future. During the trip, Nick also visited the School of Karstology at Postojnska, Slovenia, which is located in the classic karst of southeast Europe. The school offers a Ph.D. in karstology. The CCKS hopes to work with this famous institute, possibly offering a summer course in Slovenia as part of the Karst Field Studies Program in the future.
After approximately two years of effort, Nick’s work to acquire funding to begin a program that would treat urban storm-water runoff prior to its sinking into the caves under Bowling Green finally paid off. Through the help of Rep. Ron Lewis, the Corps of Engineers was awarded a $100,000 appropriation to plan a wetland treatment system to treat all the storm-water runoff along US 31-W from Campbell Lane to Natcher Parkway. President Ransdell sent a letter making WKU the local sponsor of this program. This section of the highway will be widened from 2 to 5 lanes in the near future. The plan will include storm sewers that will direct storm-water runoff to a filtration and wetland treatment facility located behind the Center’s Karst House at Lost River Cave. Other filtration wetland treatment locations will also be used, one of them possibly behind WKU’s new Center for Research and Technology (Old Bowling Green Mall). Once the plan has been completed, the Corps is very optimistic that it can fund the project under its 206 Protection of Aquatic Species Program. Nick hopes that this program will permit the CCKS, the Center for Biodiversity, and the Water Resources Center to perform research on different filtration and treatment techniques at the Lost River Groundwater Protection Laboratory. Two filtration techniques that we wish to test are the sphagnum peat moss filter and activated carbon. These filtration techniques are reported to remove 80% to 90% of urban storm water runoff contaminates, including oil and grease and heavy metals. It is hoped that the site will also serve as an important educational facility as required under the new B.G. Storm Water Master Plan being prepared to meet USEPA Phase II requirements. Fuller, Mossbarger, Scott and May Engineers, Inc., and the CCKS have teamed to work on the plan for the city of Bowling Green.
During the past year Nick wrote a section entitled “Water Tracing History,” tobe published in the Encyclopedia of Cave and Karst Science. Nick, along with other CCKS staff and graduate and undergraduate research assistants, prepared ten professional research reports and presented eight papers at scientific meetings.
Nick was interviewed by various national news media after 9-11 on ways of finding caves in Afghanistan. These included: the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, London’s Sunday Times, USA Today, NBC National News, and a live interview on Fox News Channel. The Wall Street Journal visited the Center and reported on our microgravity and resistivity techniques, including interviews with Leigh Ann Croft and graduate student Jeremy Richardson. Nick hopes to take a sabbatical this spring semester and plans to research and write a book on the large karst springs and water-filled caves that drain the Floridan aquifer in Florida.
RICHARD DEAL
is beginning his second year at Western Kentucky University this year. This past year he taught a variety of introductory classes, as well as the Geography of Europe, showing as many slides as possible, and the perennial student favorite, Data Analysis and Interpretation.
His research continues to focus on efforts to establish elected regional governments in England. He presented a paper at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting in Los Angles entitled Progress Towards Devolution in Yorkshire and the Humber. Prior to that meeting, he attended a conference of political geographers in San Diego, where he went on a tour of the US-Mexico border led by the US Border Patrol. The fences and sensors, as well as the efforts to patrol it, are fascinating to anyone interested in borders. They are also far more difficult to cross then the border fence between England and Scotland, which Richard illegally crossed in 1997 in order to get a better picture than by not crossing the border.
He spent the summer in England, largely doing additional research on devolution to the English regions. He also spent some time walking 200 miles in Yorkshire, in northern England, walking the Wolds Way and the Cleveland Way, two national trails. His original plan to walk the Hadrian's Wall Path had to be abandoned because the trail has not yet opened.
SCOTT DOBLER
has completed his second year at Western Kentucky University. This past year Scott presented a paper at the Kentucky Academy of Science entitled "Local Precipitation Associated with Pine Mountain in Southeastern Kentucky." This paper is the first in a series that will address geoscientific issues that influence the state of Kentucky. The research will be tailored to fit into the curriculum established by the Kentucky Department of Education. It will provide thematic environmental examples for P-12 teachers to use in their classroom.
In unrelated research on field methods, Scott Dobler spent two weeks during the summer touring the state of Kentucky as a platoon sergeant in the Kentucky Army National Guard. His unit, the 202 Army National Guard Band, performed at the Danville Brass Band Festival, The Louisville Zoo "Roar"chestra series, and various home-town concerts in Frankfort, Lexington, Stanford, and the International Highland Games in Glasgow, Kentucky. Scott has been involved with the Army National Guard for the last seventeen years. He plays the Trombone, Euphonium and he has been known to lead troops into battle with a Banjo on his knee. He has been “band" from playing banjo in his office during regular EST business hours established as 7 AM to 8 PM. These hours were voted on by the departmental faculty and staff, and narrowly passed by a "Shave and a haircut" vote of 17 to 1.
STUART FOSTER
was involved in a variety of activities as State Climatologist and director of the Kentucky Climate Center. In addition to responding to hundreds of requests for climatic data and services, he continued work on the GeoProfiles Initiative to develop spatial metadata for Kentucky’s climate stations. This work, in conjunction with his involvement in the U.S. Climate Reference Network project, involved some field trips in western Kentucky and will involve more travel across the state in the coming year. Dr. Foster gave presentations on climatology and GIS to groups in Kentucky and presented a poster summarizing research on the drought of 1999-2001 at the 13th Applied Climatology Conference held in Portland, Oregon, during May, 2002.
CHRIS GROVES
happily had a much safer year than in 2001 and the time has been, overall, fun and productive. Probably the most significant development of the year has been the accelerating evolution of the Hoffman Institute’s environmental research program in southwest China. Since 1995, this effort has been undertaken in cooperation with the Institute of Karst Geology in Guilin, China, and in recent years has focused increasingly on working to develop solutions to water resource problems in the southwest China karst region. This year a group of five that included Chris and Deana, graduate student Tricia Coakley, Shiu-Yue Mak from WKU’s library, and Joe Meiman from Mammoth Cave National Park, visited China in March, where they installed monitoring equipment on a large spring near Yaji Village in Guangxi Province. After giving several training and research lectures about the equipment and project, the group visited gorgeous karst areas
near Liupanshui, Guizhou, and began to investigate a number of environmental issues there, as well as scouting out some unexplored caves near Baihe in support of an upcoming Cave Research Foundation expedition in 2004.
Chris and Deana returned to China in early August to do some maintenance on the Yaji water monitoring equipment, and Chris gave a lecture about ongoing work at Mammoth Cave. They also spent a few days inspecting and planning monitoring projects in the Stone Forest area of Yunnan Province, a wonderful scenic karst area famous for tall, steep limestone pinnacles. This side trip was especially nice because the area, although only about 100 miles from the borders with Vietnam and Laos, lies at an elevation of over 6,000 feet and so the weather was cool and pleasant.
In other projects, the Hoffman Institute continued to grow and evolve with ten students working on various projects funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Park Service, the National Science Foundation, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, and the American Chemical Society. Chris and the students gave research presentations at the WKU Biodiversity Conference and the national and regional Geological Society of America meetings in Boston and Lexington. Five students gave presentations at the WKU Sigma Xi Student Research Conference in March, with Johnny Merideth receiving an outstanding presentation award in the graduate division for his talk Quantitative Evaluation of Vertical Shaft Evolution & Function Within the Mammoth Cave System. Active research work also continued in collaboration with Chris’s pal and colleague Joe Meiman at Mammoth Cave National Park. One new highlight was the initiation of the Hoffman Institute’s Distinguished Speakers in Environmental Science series, with excellent presentations in the Department during the year by Professor Yuan Daoxian from Guilin, China, and Dr. Andy Baker of the University of Newcastle, England.
As in the past several years, Chris and his laptop took advantage of the email wires stretching across the Pacific to continue working on these projects while joining Deana for the summer at the University of Hawaii, where she continues to work on a summer M.S. Program in Library Science.
DAVID J. KEELING
writes that his ninth year in the Department, and first as Department Head, provided many different opportunities and challenges, as well as a healthy dose of excitement, excellent students, several international adventures, and multiple administrative issues to keep him busy. He began the academic year, and ended the 2001 summer, by teaching one of his favorite classes, Data Analysis and Interpretation - not one of the students’ favorite classes, though! In the Fall, he took over responsibility for the graduate Geoscience Research and Literacy course and introduced students to a new perspective on research, logic, and analytical techniques. As always, Dr. Keeling team-taught the Introduction to Latin American Studies course each semester with his colleague from History, Dr. Richard Salisbury.
Despite the new administrative burden generated by the Department Head position, Dr. Keeling still managed to travel to several interesting places during the year. In November, he returned to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to complete ongoing research on the rehabilitation of the Puerto Madero complex. An article based on this research is currently under review by an academic journal in Spain. After several days in Buenos Aires, Dr. Keeling flew across the Andes to Santiago, Chile, and spend several days investigating the wine industry in the central valley and urban growth along the Pacific coast. In December, he spent a week in Puerto Rico researching transport issues and evaluating some of the constraints on accessibility and mobility caused by the physical environment.
In early January, Dr. Keeling headed across the Pacific to Hong Kong and Guilin, China. The Department has a long-standing collaborative agreement with the Karst Dynamics Laboratory in Guilin, and Dr. Keeling’s visit marked the 9th exchange between our two programs. During the 10-day visit, Dr. Keeling gave seminars in research techniques, talked about strategies for developing a Heritage Corridor research project, and helped several of the students and faculty with their English-language projects. Dr. Keeling’s spouse also held four classes in English for Special Purposes, well attended by faculty and graduate students. Several field trips with graduate students to research sites around the area provided several opportunities to develop ideas for collaborative projects and stimulated much discussion on scientific methods and techniques.
In March, during a trip to San Diego (with a side-trip to Los Angeles to attend the annual conference of the Association of American Geographers), Dr Keeling slipped across the border to Tijuana, Mexico, to evaluate recent urban growth trends in this border town. This once-sleepy little border town has exploded to a major city with over 1.5 million people, with all the attendant problems of air quality, water shortages, crime, economic development problems, and a lack of urban aesthetics. Coming back across the border into the U.S. took over two hours, as a consequence of the higher levels of security in the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001.
Dr Keeling finished up the academic year with a trip to Tuscany, Italy, to investigate regional economic development and to see what progress has been made integrating Italy into the European-wide transportation network. Although many of the major cities such as Milan, Florence, Rome, and Bologna are well connected to national and international routes, especially with new high-speed rail links, many of the smaller towns and villages still suffer from problems of poor accessibility and mobility.
Dr. Keeling attended several conferences and workshops during the year, including the 100th Anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize “Peace and Justice” conference convened at Hofstra University in New York, in November 2001. He also attended several fascinating workshops on global climate change and the oceans at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts as part of the annual summer meeting of the National Council of the American Geographical Society. He gave several talks to community organizations, including a presentation for the Noon Rotary Club in June titled “Kashmiris and Kalisnakovs in the Valley of Shangri-La.” Dr. Keeling also featured several times on WKYU-FM’s Midday Edition interview discussing Argentina’s economic collapse and the current crises in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
Research conducted in Argentina and Mexico during a sabbatical leave in Fall 2000 finally made it to publication this past year. A chapter on “Transportation Challenges for Latin America in the 21st Century” appears in a new book titled Latin America in the 21st Century: Challenges and Solutions. This book is assigned reading for the Latin American Studies class this year, so students will become very familiar with transport issues in the region! A second paper developed during sabbatical research has been accepted by the journal World Development, subject to revision, and now sits on Dr. Keeling’s desk awaiting the final edits. He hopes to get this project finished by the end of the year. Another major research project is in the writing stage. Two chapters in a new book titled Geography Rocks! Place, Culture, and Popular Music have been completed, and Dr. Keeling hopes that the remaining eight chapters will be completed by the end of June 2003. This book is a study of rock music from its emergence in the 1950s through to the 21st century from a geographical perspective. Dr. Keeling plans on using this research as the basis for another course on the Geography of Rock and Roll perhaps in Fall 2003 or Spring 2004.
As always, Dr Keeling encourages past, present, and potential students to come by and share travel stories, career information, and geographic tidbits. He can be reached easily in cyberspace at: david.keeling@wku.edu or by phone at (270) 745-4555. Also, visit Dr Keeling’s homepage on the World Wide Web- just enter:
http://www.wku.edu/~david.keeling/index.htm.
DEBRA KREITZER
spent a very productive year teaching, researching, and planning new geographical experiences. She presented two papers, one at the combined Kentucky Academy of Science and Tennessee Academy of Science conference titled Environmental Globalization and the International Biosphere Reserve Project, and one at the Association of American Geographer's Meeting (AAG) titled Environmental Globalization: The United Nations’ International Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Projects.
Debbie was also asked to present research about the effects of September 11th on Mammoth Cave
National Park and the Mammoth Cave area to a Geography of Tourism class at the University of Kentucky. The research showed that visitation was not affected by the terrorist attacks, but that many policies dealing with safety were changed. For example, big boulders now decorate the walkways leading to the visitors center and the administration building to keep potential bomb-carrying cars out. Moreover, visitors to the administration building must now sign in and out and are issued a visitor's tag.
Debbie is still the advisor to the growing Geography Club. During the past year the Geography Club was involved in several fundraisers and two major field trips. One of these field trips involved camping at Mammoth Cave National Park and participating in Ranger-led activities. The other field trip was to the national meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in Los Angeles, CA. Six students participated in this event, which involved attending paper and poster sessions, networking with professional geographers, and learning the geography of the Los Angeles area. For some of the club members, this was their first trip to the west coast. They showed their colors as true geographers on the plane trip to Los Angeles. By using an atlas and finding landmarks on the ground, the students were able to tell surrounding passengers and crew exactly where we were at almost all times! The Los Angeles trip gave Geography Club members cultural and educa-tional experiences they will never forget. During the coming academic year the club plans on participating in many more educational and fun activities.
The culminating event of the year for Debbie was the study abroad trip to Australia. More details about this exciting program can be found in section one of this GEOGRAM.
KENNETH KUEHN sends warm greetings to G&G alumni! He writes: “As you have read in the related Geogram articles, my year was marked by the most extreme of personal lows and highs. These were mixed with a diverse array of professional activities.
In the realm of public service, I made numerous media appearances, including television, radio, and newspapers. Why? This was mainly due to my declared candidacy for public office! Having survived the spring primary election, I will appear on November’s ballot along with seven others (including our own renowned Dr Mike May) as a contender for a seat on the Bowling Green City Commission. This level of visibility has provided a great opportunity to educate our citizens about relevant geological and environmental issues, and there are many of them! For instance, the city and county are cooperating on a massive, 4000-acre business and industrial complex called the Kentucky Trimodal Transpark. The city has a federally required stormwater permit application due next year, and back in February we had the largest catastrophic ground collapse in city history occur on a new stretch of Dishman Lane.
Last fall, I attended the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists (KSPG) Annual Meeting and Field Conference, which examined some historic oil fields of eastern Kentucky. The following month I participated in a workshop in Evansville, Indiana, that reviewed the earthquake hazard in the Tri-State Region and discussed how to build disaster-resistant communities. This was very appropriate because on June 18 of this year the region experienced a 5.0 magnitude quake that was felt all the way to Bowling Green! Fortunately, no damage was reported.
The past year also was a busy one in geological research. In November, I presented a paper entitled, Why on Earth do they want to put it HERE? A critique of the site selection process for the proposed Kentucky Trimodal Transpark at the Kentucky Academy of Science and Tennessee Academy of Science joint Annual Meeting in Murfreesboro, TN. I also coauthored three other papers that were presented at various meetings, as well as two field guides for professional field trips. I led one trip around our famous karst environment just prior to the spring sectional meeting of the Geological Society of America in April. I also continued my efforts with the Kentucky Geological Survey throughout the year as part of the planning team contributing information in the evaluation of possible routes for the proposed Interstate 66 in the Bowling Green area.
In the teaching world, I continued with general education geology courses and Structural Geology for our majors and minors this past year. In April, I led the annual 800-mile field excursion into the southern Appalachians of Tennessee and North Carolina for about twenty students, accompanied by two other faculty .
I also continued in my part-time role as Assistant to the Ogden College Dean, contributing to several College-wide initiatives this past year. I authored the overall strategic plan for our Applied Research and Technology Program, developed a new recruitment strategy for the College, and participated in a successful search process to find the new Dean of Ogden College. These were all very time-consuming activities, but very satisfying in their own way.
This Fall, the Geology faculty will undertake a complete review and possible restructuring of the Geology curriculum. Please contact me (270-745-3082, kenneth.kuehn@wku.edu ) with your suggestions about this or just to share the latest news. I am always glad to hear from you.
REZAUL MAHMOOD
writes that it proved to be a busy and exciting first year. Teaching new courses and research activities kept him quite busy. He taught meteorology, weather forecasting and analysis, and physical climatology during the 2001-2002 academic year. Rezaul continued to focus his research on the area of soil moisture modeling. He is also developing new interests in Monsoon dynamics and Appalachian flooding. Rezaul published some of his research as a lead author in several peer-reviewed journals, including Climate Research, Agronomy Journal, and Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. His soil moisture modeling work also appeared as a peer-reviewed book chapter published by the World Meteorological Organization. Moreover, the initial results of Rezaul’s ongoing research activities appeared in several conference proceedings. He was also involved in several multi-departmental and multi-institutional grant-writing activities for extramural funding to support research here at WKU. Rezaul went to Lexington, KY (annual SEDAAG conference), and Portland, OR (Applied Climate Conference), to present papers at professional meetings, and to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at Boulder, CO, to participate in a workshop.
During these trips Rezaul was able to carve out some time for fun. On his way to Lexington he visited famous Cumberland Falls, the Natural Bridge, and the Red River gorge of eastern Kentucky and explored surrounding areas. Rezaul took Amtrak to Portland. This was an absolutely superb scenic tour. Among other routes, Amtrak travels along the Mississippi, the Missouri, and through the Glacier National Park and the Columbia River gorge. While in Portland, he traveled to Mt. St. Helens and Mt Hood, and also to the superb series of falls along the Columbia River gorge. Like any other geographer, Rezaul also took the opportunity during weekends to explore areas adjacent to Bowling Green. This resulted in numerous road trips through the Kentucky countryside. Rezaul is looking forward to another equally productive and fun year.
MICHAEL MAY
having completed his sixth year as a geology faculty member in the Department, has expanded his public service duties to include running for the Bowling Green City Commission. Dr Ken Kuehn is also running for a Commissioner spot and both geologists are finding out that the lack of geology in the planning process in the Bowling Green area has cost taxpayers far too much and they would like to contribute to a change for the better in the community. Dr May’s service to the region has ranged from serving as a key member of the Bowling Green/Warren County Storm Water Advisory Committee, to testifying at marathon planning and zoning meetings for the Kentucky Trimodal Transpark (KTT), a proposed 4,000-acre industrial park between Bowling Green and Mammoth Cave.
Dr May, along with other scientists in the area as well as internationally known scientists, is concerned about the potential damage to our beloved karstlands east of Bowling Green. All classic EPA pathways of concern, such as soil/rock, groundwater, surface water, and air, could be dramatically affected in a negative fashion by poor siting and planning of power plants, highways, and industrial facilities, particularly those that are so close to Mammoth Cave National Park (MCNP).
Some assaults to the region’s air quality due to Kentucky building numerous, so-called merchant coal-fired power plants or not retrofitting existing, 1960s and 1970s technology plants with Best Available Retrofit Technologies (BART), are a concern. Dr May, along with Dr Chris Groves, was asked to testify before the EPA in Chicago last year (August 2001) to urge strong passing of the BART rule on behalf of the National Park Conservation Association (NPCA) and MCNP. The nation's national parks have increasingly poor visibility, and a strong BART rule would be a correct move in literally clearing the air for future generations. Numerous surveys conducted by the Park System have suggested that poor visibility in our National Parks greatly diminishes the typical visitor's perception of the parks and their overall satisfaction of them.
Additional public service for Mike has included presenting local schools, civic groups, and churches with field trips and lectures related to geology and environmental issues, particularly those related to the proposed KTT. Although the concept of a multi-modal (truck, train, air) industrial facility sounds good, Mike is very much opposed to the selection of a site on the side of Bowling Green located closest to MCNP as opposed to other areas of the county that are already industrialized. This project has brought much publicity to the Department (for a series of articles on the Transpark and Dishman Lane, see www.stoptranspark.org and click on News). Dr May’s other apparent service is getting the Department’s name out on local radio shows, TV, in newspapers, and even on National Public Radio (NPR). He was the featured geologist on NPR’s December 27, 2001 All Things Considered show, with the topic being the proposed Transpark and Mammoth Cave [report]. He takes little credit for getting this show in to the national spotlight, noting that Western's own Dan Modlin of WKYU Public Radio does such great work. Another spotlight was pushing for national coverage of the Dishman Lane collapse in Geotimes ( read Drs Crawford and May featured in a short article in April 2002 entitled “Slip and Slide in Kentucky.”
On the academic front, Mike has continued to teach intro geology, physical geology, stratigraphy, environmental geology, and aqueous geochemistry classes. He continues as an adjunct faculty member for the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and in August 2002 co-taught the UNC environmental regulations short-course in Norfolk, Virginia; in January 2002 he also taught the course in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Several meetings and field conferences were the usual for Mike this past year. With Dr Kuehn and one-year geology instructor Elli Goeke (MS student hailing from Indiana U. and now a Ph.D. student at University of Iowa) he enjoyed the annual field trip of the Conference of the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists (KSPG) in September 2001 to the historic oil fields of eastern Kentucky. The WKU geologists also took in the scenery of Natural Bridges State Park and the Red River Gorge geologic area. Another important conference was a joint southeastern and north central sectional meeting of the Geological Society of America in Lexington, KY. Mike, along with co-author Ken Kuehn, presented in a public policy and geology theme section a talk on the KTT and the lack of geology in the siting and planning process. Another highlight was attending an earthquake workshop in Evansville, Indiana, in October 2001.
In November 2001, Dr May, along with other colleagues in Geography & Geology and students, attended a joint Kentucky Academy of Science (KAS) and Tennessee Academy of Science (TAS) Meeting at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. He and his students presented several papers at this meeting. “Grain-size Distribution of Select Chesterian Rocks in South Central Kentucky” was presented by Jessica Campbell (co-authors Leslie Falin, Tassall Hughes, Patricia Littell, Dan Polak, Dan L., and Dr May). “A Preliminary Grain-size Analysis of Basal Pennsylvanian Rocks in South Central Kentucky” was presented by Julie Neltner (co-authors Alison Parker, Tom Arndt and Dr. May). “A Geologic Critique of an Environmental Assessment for the Kentucky Trimodal Transpark” was presented by Dr May and Ron Taylor. Co-authors Chad Weaver, Kieran Hosey, Jeremy Ballard, and Dr May presented “Petrographic and Outcrop Study of Basal Pennsylvanian Sandstones and Granular-to-Pebbly Sandstones in South Central Kentucky.”
Work continues for Dr May on the Mississippian-Pennsylvanian Unconformity project in south-central Kentucky, and he is now also working with Dr Carl Rexroad (Indiana Geological Survey) and Dr Lew Brown and students (Lake Superior State University) on rocks in Butler County associated with the unconformity. This research is focusing on delineating age relationships via the use of conodonts. The tiny conodonts have to be processed for conducting biostratigraphic studies. They range from about 0.3 mm to 1.5 mm in length and are amber or brown/gray colored, tooth- or plate-like structures of calcium phosphate (apatite) of little understood biological origin but they are great correlating tools for stratigraphers. Other local projects included co-authoring grants to the USGS, National Park Service, and similar groups on water quality issues near Bonnieville, KY, and on Mercury fall-out from combustion of coal and its effects on water quality and biota in the Mammoth Cave region.
Mike and his wife Beth, and sons Peter (9), and Kevin (7), continued with various sports activities for the year and enjoyed a full three weeks in Colorado this year along with a one-week family trek to the east coast. Mike is looking forward to more spare time with his family and a well-deserved sabbatical leave for the spring 2003 semester. He will be working on petrographic aspects of limestone replacement by iron-rich kaolinite clays, (potentially producing our familiar "red soil” or terra rosa in the karst area). He will be working with another geologist, Enrique Merino, at Indiana University during his sabbatical leave on this project. If time permits, he may revisit some petrographic territory in the realm of modern carbonates via isotopic study of Pingelap Atoll (Micronesia) samples housed at the U. of Kansas.
MARY PRANTE
writes: “Greetings to all. I hope you've all been enjoying life. I’ve got some bits and pieces you might find interesting (Myself, I'm finding a return to routine very fulfilling.):
Many of you remember seeing my Little Blue Car tooling around Bowling Green... I'm pleased to say she and I passed 350,000 miles this summer (Quiz question: About how many times around the Equator would this be?). Although not quite the world travelers that Dr. Keeling and Dr. Trapasso are, Little Blue and I have seen a considerable amount of Kansas and the rest of the U.S. together, and hope for a few more miles out of this first engine.
Kevin Cary, our new staff member and director of the new GIS Lab, has already been hard at work. If all continues to go well, by the time you are reading this, some of my maps will be on their way to Rome, for a visit with the Pope. Actually, bishops make a visit to Rome every five years, and the document they submit is called the Quinquennial Report; having read the previous reports while digging around in the Diocese of Owensboro archives, all those who have taken my Cartography course know I couldn't resist asking to help. Not anything significant for anyone else, I find it interesting my maps will be seen by one who has some influence over the lives of 1.8 billion people (Quiz question: How many times the population of the U.S. is this?). So I'm thankful Kevin is back with us and so very up-to-date with all the bells and whistles in the GIS Lab.
Lastly, I'm looking for an undergraduate or graduate student to assist in a community service project appropriate for Halloween: One of the local cemeteries is considering investing and building a mausoleum complex and, personally, I'd like to know what's beneath the surface at the site. (I hope that the folks upstairs at The Center for Cave and Karst Studies will be able to squeeze us in between all the other projects they are involved in!)
I hope to see you at Homecoming! We all like to see the successful people who used to be our students. If you can't make it, drop us a line, or pop by the Department sometime if you get the chance.
(Quiz Answers: Question 1: A bit more than 14 times; Question 2: Something more than 6 times.)
FRED SIEWERS'
4th year at Western has been an exciting one, full of new teaching and research initiatives and public service activities. On the teaching front, Dr. Siewers presented courses in Historical Geology, Paleontology, and Sedimentology. New this year in Paleontology was a class field trip to the Maysville, Kentucky, area, an area well known for its richly fossiliferous Ordovician limestones. The purpose of the trip was to collect fossils representative of the formations of the area and to learn how fossils can be used to interpret ancient marine environments. Students came away with a huge number of slabs and specimens. That material formed the basis for an end-of-the-semester research project and a series of student poster presentations. Judging by the quality of posters and enthusiasm of the student presenters, the field trip and project were a great success.
Dr. Siewers’ Sedimentology class, like past years, was a research-oriented course. Students in the class studied the Mississippian Girkin Formation at several localities throughout Warren County. Unlike most studies of the Girkin, which tend to focus on its well-developed caves and sinkholes, Dr. Siewers’ class conducted a stratigraphic study of the formation. The goal of the study was to subdivide the Girkin into members and to correlate those members to equivalent strata in western Kentucky, southern Indiana, and Illinois. Through detailed outcrop and laboratory studies, the students found particular features - ancient soil horizons and brecciated zones - they were able to recognize throughout the study area and use for preliminary correlations. This work was presented at the annual WKU Sigma Xi research conference and will form the foundation of future studies of the Girkin.
Also related to this teaching, Dr. Siewers worked closely this past year with geology senior Tim Perkins on an independent study research project. Like the Sedimentology class, Tim worked on a project involving the stratigraphy and sedimentology of the Girkin Formation. Tim’s research took him all over south-central Kentucky, including outcrops in Logan, Warren, Edmonson, and Hart Counties. Tim and Dr. Siewers were able to correlate two newly defined members of the uppermost Girkin throughout the study area - a significant advance over previous stratigraphic correlations. During Fall 2001, Tim gave an oral presentation of this research at the Joint Kentucky and Tennessee Academy of Science meeting in Murfreesboro, TN. For his presentation, Tim received 1st place in the Geology undergraduate research competition. Tim also gave an excellent poster presentation of this work at the joint North Central-Southeast Regional Meeting of the Geological Society of America, held this past spring in Lexington, Kentucky. Like the contributions of Dr. Siewers' sedimentology class, this work will allow for more detailed studies of the Girkin.
For his own research, Dr. Siewers submitted an article on “ooids and coated grains” for the soon-to-be-published Encyclopedia of Sediments and Sedimentary Rocks, and he worked extensively on a paper documenting the formation of hardgrounds and paleokarst surfaces in the Ordovician limestones. Related to this research, and to the broader teaching and research mission of the Department, Dr. Siewers secured two important grants. One grant from the KY EPSCoR program, brought in $75,000 in research start-up monies for Dr. Andrew Wulff, the Department’s new full time mineralogist/petrologist. The other grant provided monies to purchase two new petrographic microscopes and a much-needed fiber optic light source for the Department’s mineralogy lab. These funds and facilities will greatly enable the Department to advance its teaching and research mission.
Dr. Siewers continued to be actively involved in university and public service. He served on several University committees, and was actively involved in the WKU Chapter of Sigma Xi, and the geology section of the Kentucky Academy of Science. He currently serves as President of WKU Sigma Xi and the geology section of the KAS. In addition, Dr. Siewers continued his involvement with geoscience education initiatives throughout the Commonwealth. Among various activities, he and Dr. Ken Kuehn, in collaboration with the School of Teacher Education, assembled a new Geology Program track in Earth and Space Science education. When approved by the University, this track will provide a new opportunity for WKU students to earn a high school-level teaching certificate in Earth and Space Science.
And finally, Dr. Siewers was recognized this past year for his outstanding teaching. In Spring 2002, he received the Ogden College of Science and Engineering Faculty Award for Teaching. Dr. Siewers spends most of his time away from the Department with his wife Helen and two daughters Anna (5) and Maria (2). Dr. Siewers enjoys keeping up with former students and alumni of the program. Feel free to contact him at any time (fred.siewers@wku.edu; 270-745-5988).
L. MICHAEL TRAPASSO
is doing his usual job of teaching many of the weather and climate courses in the Department. With Glen Conner in retirement, Trapasso is in charge of all the advisement for the Meteorology/Climatology Track students. His new colleague, Rezaul Mahmood, has taken some of the load of the upper-level weather and climate courses, which allows Trapasso more time to administer the new GEOG 121 (web-based) computer lab. According to Trapasso, “It’s a real baby-sitting job… there’s always something that needs attending.”
On the professional side, he is still quite active. Late last year he was approached by a few colleagues and asked if he would like to help write a new edition of an introductory physical geography textbook. Since he had never done this before, he accepted the challenge and, at present, is revising all the weather and climate chapters in this new edition. If all goes according to the publishers’ (Brooks/Cole Division of Thomson Publishing) schedule, the new edition should come out for the Fall 2003 Semester. If you can, please look for Essentials of Physical Geography by Gabler, Petersen, and Trapasso. Michael was recently asked by the editor of The Encyclopedia of World Climates to write a few entries for that refer-ence book. Since the editor is a personal friend, Trapasso agreed and soon will be working on that project. Last October, Michael traveled to Thessaloniki in Northern Greece to present some of his sabbatical research at an international conference and workshop sponsored by the International Society of Biometeorology. It was a delightful setting to present a paper, and a wonderful opportunity to visit the mainland of Greece. A written version of his research was published on the web.
Though the trip to Greece was a wonderful opportunity, that just wasn’t enough for Trapasso. During a (slightly extended) Spring Break, he went to visit a friend in New Zealand. According to Trapasso, “My friend Reg picked me up at Auckland Airport…two weeks and 3500 miles later he dropped me off at the airport.” This super road trip took them to both the North and South Islands, where they experienced a variety of climates and different types of geomorphology (fluvial, karst, coastal, and glacial). Upon his return he immediately jumped back into classes … exhausted but happy.
This summer he decided to take life a little easier, spending a few weeks wandering around parts of eastern Canada (Quebec and Ontario). According to Trapasso, “There’s a lot of French and Indian Wars and War of 1812 history up there, complete with forts and battlefields.” His intense love of military history keeps him busy outside the classroom. With respect to the Civil War (his main war), he is constantly asked to address school and community groups, showcasing his expertise on this period of US history.
On the Civil War re-enacting front, Trapasso has suffered a setback. After doing a few Civil War re-enactments this year, his horse Savannah (a good mare) had to retire (due to leg trouble) and he’s “interviewing,” as he puts it, for a new war horse. According to Dr. Trapasso, horses are everywhere, but a good cavalry horse is hard to find. We all wish him luck.
Contributions to the Department of Geography and Geology Development Fund between January 2001 and June 2002 (including the Wayne Hoffman Memorial Fund) surpassed $13,500 in cash and other gifts. The number of individual contributions to our Fund topped the 135 mark! Thanks to everyone for helping us achieve our goals this year. As always, we continue to need your help now more than ever as budgets remain extremely limited; your contribution goes a long way to ensuring that we can support student research, scholarships, and field work. When you receive a call from our students, or whenever the spirit moves you, make a contribution to the Department and to the University. You can also gift funds to the Hoffman Memorial Fund, in memory of Wayne L. Hoffman, who led the Department for nearly 25 years, or in memory of Dr. Deborah Kuehn. Be sure to specify that the money be designated for use by the Department of Geography and Geology. Our profound thanks to our contributing alumni. We gratefully acknowledge gifts from the individuals listed on this page. Funds were applied during the year to support student research, student attendance at conferences, study abroad scholarships for students, new furniture for the student lounge, the annual alumni homecoming geofeast, and other support.
Roger D. Breeden (Geology 1982) is an environmental geologist with TPM Group, Inc., in Bowling Green, a locally owned full-service environmental consulting and contracting company offering a multitude of services. Roger is a senior project manager, senior project geologist, and division manager for TPM. 
I predict a fantastic 2003 if you send in your Alumni Information sheet right
away............
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Mail to: Dr. David J. Keeling, GEOGRAM Editor
Department of Geography & Geology
Western Kentucky University
One Big Red Way
Bowling Green, KY 42101-3576